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.