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This library and associated documentation is:

Copyright © 2002,2006 - by Philip D. Howard - All rights reserved

Author/editor:  Phil Howard
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Name:   VRB


Licensing:

As the author of the library, I reserve for myself all rights to the
library, including the right to change the licensing terms of future
versions.  This version is distributed according to the GNU Lesser
General Public License, in the version in effect at the time I did
this release, or the current version in effect at the time you choose
to use the current version.  The licensing applied to this version is
permanent; that is, the license of a future version, if different, will
not take away any rights attached to this version, including all copies
made of this version even after a newer version is released.

For more information see the file "LICENSE" or "lesser.txt" included
with this library, or http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html


Description:

The VRB library implements a ring buffer, also known as a character
FIFO or circular buffer, with a special property that any data present
in the buffer, as well as any empty space, are always seen as a single
contiguous extent by the calling program.  This is implemented with
virtual memory mapping by creating a mirror image of the buffer contents
at the memory location in the virtual address space immediately after
the main buffer location.  This allows the mirror image to always be
seen without doing any copying of data.

VRB is written in C and is intended for C programmers.  It can be used
in C++ but C++ programmers will find that their usual ways of coding for
objects does not apply.  And this is because it is intended just for C.


Installation:

The installation instructions are in file "INSTALL".  But if you are in
a hurry, you can just do:

    cmake .
    make clean
    make install

You will probably have to configure your operating system to properly use
the new library.


Usage:

Once installed, usage is usually done by placing the appropriate include
statements in your C program, coding calls to the functions according to
their documentation, and placing the appropriate -L(directory) and -lvrb
options on your gcc compilation, or the equivalent for other compilers/linkers.


Warning:

This is an BETA release.  API's are NOT finalized and may change without
specific mention of the changes being made.  While I encourage others to
use the library, at present I do not encourage distribution of programs
that use the library until a final release.


Contact:

Bug reports and other matters may be addressed to:  vrb@ipal.org

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