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<concept id="GUID-A668C70B-1AFF-5D58-9527-8530E2472227" xml:lang="en"><title>Buffers

And Strings Overview</title><shortdesc>This document provides an overview of buffers and strings.</shortdesc><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody>

<section id="GUID-247120B1-68AD-4827-B7B3-AE9696BE7F8E"><title>Purpose</title> <p>Manipulates

strings and general data buffers.</p> </section>

<section id="GUID-775BAD91-2920-4027-9E47-C727847A45DD"><title>Description</title> <p>The

central Symbian platform idiom for both strings and buffers is descriptors.

Some APIs in this group, such as Literals, Lexical Analysis, and Package Buffers

provide additional descriptor handling facilities. In some circumstances,

applications may need to manage raw data buffers directly in memory. For this,

the Dynamic Buffers and Raw Memory APIs are available.</p> <p><b>APIs</b> </p> <p>Use the APIs as follows:</p> <p><xref href="GUID-21C04887-9F9C-5066-AA1D-B30C433CC0AE.dita">Circular

Buffers Overview</xref> </p> <p>Provides a fixed length first-in first-out

queue of fixed size objects. </p> <p><xref href="GUID-0817AD1D-58CF-5108-ACBF-26DFD4BA395E.dita">Descriptors

Overview</xref> </p> <p>Manipulates string and data buffer.</p> <p><xref href="GUID-C15F56E3-753C-55CA-B3EF-63B2D139BCE4.dita">Dynamic

Buffers Overview</xref> </p> <p>Manipulates data buffers of variable length.</p> <p><xref href="GUID-2E22CB5B-E648-5760-AB74-8947C7EDE2CF.dita">Lexical Analysis Overview</xref> </p> <p>Provides

string analysis and string-to-number conversions.</p> <p><xref href="GUID-106B5A31-012E-503D-A972-A745ECADC1E7.dita">Literals

Overview</xref> </p> <p>Provides simple creation of descriptors that contain

read-only literal text.</p> <p><xref href="GUID-E189B0C0-AAB5-5472-996B-91043DE0B6D4.dita">Package

Buffers Overview</xref> </p> <p>Allows any value type (<codeph>T</codeph> class)

to be encapsulated as a descriptor, for the purpose of inter-thread parameter

passing.</p> <p><xref href="GUID-506642C2-A14F-55F2-9377-43DDB14F4053.dita">Raw

Memory Overview</xref>  </p> <p>Performs simple manipulations of data in memory.</p> </section>

<section id="GUID-0FA9F64E-BE2B-4BF0-9E20-24758DBD3660"><title>See also</title> <p><xref href="GUID-EA98D77C-743B-5BA5-B131-A327B12A099C.dita">Character Representation

Of Real Numbers Overview</xref> </p> <p><xref href="GUID-D0D27AEA-FDDB-5F6F-94F6-ADDF5910DC47.dita">Client/Server

Overview</xref> </p> <p><xref href="GUID-B1BDF68C-F989-56BD-AED4-727595D7355C.dita">Doubly

Linked Lists Overview</xref> </p> <p><xref href="GUID-54417A4F-710D-5257-BF49-13D9F28C92B9.dita">Memory

Management Overview</xref> </p> </section>