construct/ircd

IRCd Library Definitions

This directory contains definitions and linkage for libircd

The purpose of libircd is to facilitate the execution of a server which handles requests from end-users. The library hosts a set of pluggable modules which may introduce the actual application features (or the "business logic") of the server.

Implied #include <ircd.h>

The ircd.h standard include group is pre-compiled and included first by default for every compilation unit in this directory. Developers do not have to worry about including project headers in a compilation unit, especially when creating and reorganizing either of them.

Note that because ircd.h is include above any manually included header, there is a theoretical possibility for a conflict. We make a serious effort to prevent ircd.h from introducing pollution outside of our very specific namespaces (see: Project Namespaces).

Dependency Isolation

Compilation units are primarily divided around the inclusion of a specific header or third-party dependency which is not involved in the ircd.h include group. Second to that, units tend to be divided by namespace and the subsystem they're implementing. Units can further be divided if they become unwieldy, but we bias toward large aggregate units. Within these large units, there are divisions which group the definitions by the include/ircd/ header which declares them.

We do not included third-party headers in our own headers which are included by others. A developer of an ircd:: interface can choose to either forward declare third-party symbols in our headers, or wrap more complicated functionality.