1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

     2 <!-- Copyright (c) 2007-2010 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies) All rights reserved. -->

     3 <!-- This component and the accompanying materials are made available under the terms of the License 

     4 "Eclipse Public License v1.0" which accompanies this distribution, 

     5 and is available at the URL "http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html". -->

     6 <!-- Initial Contributors:

     7     Nokia Corporation - initial contribution.

     8 Contributors: 

     9 -->

    10 <!DOCTYPE concept

    11   PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" "concept.dtd">

    12 <concept id="GUID-F6B9860A-E7F2-5B03-878D-9BCA0AF029C2" xml:lang="en"><title>Quick

    13 Start</title><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody>

    14 <p>Generic OS Services is a collection of components and libraries that provide

    15 generic OS level services to the Symbian platform components and applications. </p>

    16 <section><title>Getting started with Generic OS Services</title> <p>The following

    17 list briefly describes how device creators or Symbian Developers can use the

    18 APIs of the components and libraries provided by Generic OS Services: </p> <ul>

    19 <li id="GUID-E5E9B035-EA72-5931-9295-6601A5A202CA"><p>Use the Plug-In Framework

    20 (ECom) APIs to register, discover plug-ins and load appropriate plug-ins. </p> </li>

    21 <li id="GUID-2C3836C2-5F9B-5E5B-95A8-725325956AFF"><p>Use the P.I.P.S. libraries

    22 (<codeph>libc</codeph>, <codeph>libm</codeph>, <codeph>libpthread</codeph> and <codeph>libdl</codeph>)

    23 to port POSIX-based applications to the Symbian platform. </p> </li>

    24 <li id="GUID-195FD344-AF6B-517A-869C-99A816FE45CB"><p>Use the Standard C++

    25 libraries to develop or port Standard C++ applications or libraries to the

    26 Symbian platform. </p> </li>

    27 <li id="GUID-71C8DD3C-9989-5EB0-AC01-BACACB0BB683"><p>Use the <xref href="http://refspecs.freestandards.org/LSB_3.1.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/librt.html" scope="external">Librt</xref> library APIs to port Librt-based applications

    28 to Symbian platform quickly and easily. </p> </li>

    29 <li id="GUID-83754BD8-F2AA-55FC-999F-BF46BDD1CA61"><p>Use the EUser High Level

    30 (EUserHL) library to do better string handling, resource management, and error

    31 handling and object creation along the lines of standard C++ practices. EUserHL

    32 library provides a usability layer to hide away some of the complexities of

    33 the Symbian platform. </p> </li>

    34 <li id="GUID-6BEBEC4E-71F5-56F0-A731-DD498446B6BB"><p>Use the Zip Compression

    35 Library APIs to perform file and stream compression and decompression. </p> </li>

    36 <li id="GUID-D62D3C16-0C6A-5569-BCD7-546EBF687282"><p>Use the task scheduler

    37 APIs to develop applications with scheduling options and capabilities. </p> </li>

    38 <li id="GUID-26FD6D1B-5F7C-5C4B-8474-B5B7D4BB7D0F"><p>Use the Active Backup

    39 Client APIs to create backup and restore software with complete control of

    40 the data backed up and restored. </p> </li>

    41 <li id="GUID-D9B2CA30-9AA0-529C-B531-5B511BD05B7C"><p>Use the HTTP Utilities

    42 library APIs to extract URI components, construct and modify Uniform Resource

    43 Indicators (URIs), text utilities, and URI component utilities required to

    44 work with URIs. </p> </li>

    45 <li id="GUID-4FC76033-12BC-5D76-AD3F-D4825E3D6C1B"><p>Use the MIME (Multipurpose

    46 Internet Mail Extension) Recognition Framework APIs to implement data type

    47 recognition using MIME recognizer plug-ins. </p> </li>

    48 <li id="GUID-22816C73-E2CC-57FD-BB18-8A3DA071F95B"><p>Use the Basic Application

    49 Framework Utilities library (BAFL) to in turn use utilities, such as clipboard,

    50 command-line parser, descriptor array, environment change notifier, incremental

    51 matcher, resource files, localized names of plug-ins, system sounds and string

    52 pools. </p> </li>

    53 <li id="GUID-B4CB6CF9-8022-55A8-9642-2F79306C6653"><p>Use the Base Services

    54 Utility library (BSUL) to validate messages and handle errors. </p> </li>

    55 <li id="GUID-F239EF07-F3DC-5C23-8A21-44CDFE798322"><p>Use the Activity Manager

    56 library to enable clients to monitor user inactivity (idle time) and user

    57 activity (key press). </p> </li>

    58 <li id="GUID-FFF66809-C883-570C-A741-9182280B2F7C"><p>Use the System Utility

    59 library to perform the following tasks: </p> <ul>

    60 <li id="GUID-62F47958-AFEF-5D09-BF39-88676E8E889B"><p>Retrieve software and

    61 language package version strings for display purposes. </p> </li>

    62 <li id="GUID-B3726DF9-7108-5C0A-A713-2B0BAA36051A"><p>Check for free space

    63 on a disk drive before file creation or writing. </p> </li>

    64 <li id="GUID-F47C051F-921C-5B72-8498-0D4AB4FB295F"><p>Get device type information

    65 (phone model) for display purposes. </p> </li>

    66 </ul> </li>

    67 </ul> </section>

    68 <section><title>Architecture</title> <p>The Generic OS Services module is

    69 a group of non-related components and libraries that provide OS level services

    70 to other components of the Symbian platform. The components and libraries

    71 in Generic OS Services are grouped into the following collections: </p> <ul>

    72 <li id="GUID-D831C8AB-D3AF-57EB-81CF-E4EF1E57CBED"><p><xref href="GUID-9208E03A-CC7A-57A9-84BD-778B99040842.dita"> Compression

    73 Libraries</xref>  </p> </li>

    74 <li><p><xref href="GUID-E2DE2C6F-E071-5E88-96F1-D71DDED84609.dita">Generic Open

    75 Libraries</xref></p></li>

    76 <li id="GUID-5F25107F-DF98-5DB1-9D4A-B8A7B68B2919"><p><xref href="GUID-94215E49-605B-51BA-B215-10BDA1A0C013.dita">Generic

    77 Services</xref>  </p> </li>

    78 <li id="GUID-FE8F4625-0D24-5113-A72F-B9E70801284F"><p><xref href="GUID-324107D1-6E0B-56DD-BDC0-7296F688A9CF.dita"> Low

    79 Level Libraries and Frameworks</xref>  </p> </li>

    80 </ul> <p>The following diagram outlines the Generic OS Services collections

    81 and components associated with each collection: </p> <fig id="GUID-3DCD7AF8-7355-5752-A569-EA4F9078C739">

    82 <title>              Collections and components of Generic OS Services   

    83         </title>

    84 <image href="GUID-AD95D78A-9323-5E97-96C4-FB4872B66755_d0e163211_href.png" placement="inline"/>

    85 </fig> </section>

    86 <section><title>Technologies</title> <p>Generic OS services enables, implements

    87 or uses the following technologies: </p> <ul>

    88 <li id="GUID-66896EAF-09A0-5EBB-A496-106F94A924EA"><p> <b>zlib:</b> The <xref href="GUID-5D14ADEC-ED83-5FA4-B551-C57CAE4F79BE.dita">Zip Compression Library</xref> (EZLib)

    89 provides C++ wrapper classes that encapsulate the functionality of the Open

    90 Source <xref href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zlib" scope="external">zlib</xref> library

    91 v1.2.3. It provides stream and file compression and decompression functionalities. </p> </li>

    92 <li id="GUID-EF1DE4A8-CBE1-5DD3-9D89-E2EAC1CC1B29"><p> <b> Standard C++:</b> A

    93 Standard C++ environment with IOStream and STL (Standard Template Library)

    94 libraries enables you to develop or port Standard C++ applications or libraries

    95 quickly and easily on Symbian platform. For more information, see the <xref href="GUID-4492D5C1-C64E-5561-8A3F-8D887603B6FB.dita"> Standard C++ Porting Tutorials</xref> section. </p> </li>

    96 <li id="GUID-95F58286-C65B-5EC3-A432-1C3C5CA02269"><p> <b>P.I.P.S. Is POSIX

    97 on Symbian Platform (P.I.P.S.):</b> P.I.P.S. provides an API layer, above

    98 the Symbian platform native APIs, that is more closely aligned with industry

    99 standard APIs making Symbian software development more accessible to Symbian

   100 Developers who program using the C language. Symbian Developers can use the

   101 P.I.P.S. libraries (<codeph>libc</codeph>, <codeph>libm</codeph>, <codeph>libpthread</codeph> and <codeph>libdl</codeph>)

   102 to port POSIX-based applications to the Symbian platform. For more information,

   103 see the <xref href="GUID-C4C85189-BA6F-5F11-ABB3-727D8C1F5984.dita">P.I.P.S. Porting

   104 Tutorials</xref> section. </p> </li>

   105 <li id="GUID-571DD883-A5A6-5A89-9092-47279A521685"><p> <b> POSIX.1b, Real-time

   106 extensions:</b> The Librt library enables support POSIX.1b, Real-time extensions

   107 on Symbian platform and is based on the Linux Standard Base (LSB) 3.1 specification.

   108 It covers features such as shared memory, clocks and real time emulation for

   109 timers. Support for the Librt library on Symbian platform enables you to port

   110 Librt-based applications to Symbian platform quickly and easily. For more

   111 information, see the <xref href="GUID-6565B222-4036-5C3D-8319-4CDDA3F2098D.dita">Librt</xref> section </p> </li>

   112 <li id="GUID-CBF47924-085E-5546-92D8-D9269072B816"><p> <b>MIME (Multipurpose

   113 Internet Mail Extension):</b> MIME is an internet standard system for identifying

   114 the type of data in a file or stream. Types can include graphics, photos,

   115 audio, video files and formatted text. MIME type recognition enables devices

   116 to identify data in streams or files and start appropriate applications automatically. </p> <p>This

   117 technology is implemented by the MIME recognition framework component. The

   118 MIME recognition framework implements data recognition using MIME recogniser

   119 plug-ins. For more information, see the <xref href="GUID-F18D0E06-2FB8-5339-AF31-02CC7D5A8010.dita">MIME

   120 Recognition Framework</xref> section. </p> </li>

   121 <li id="GUID-51BFDE39-44E7-51E6-82BC-2F45738A0ADD"><p> <b>ECom Plug-in:</b> The

   122 Plug-in (ECom) framework is a generic framework that enables registration

   123 and discovery of plug-ins, and the loading of an appropriate plug-in. The

   124 Plug-In framework is intended to provide a common and system-wide mechanism

   125 for instantiating a dynamically determined component. For more information,

   126 see the <xref href="GUID-9E92EE30-F2E2-5F28-BB2A-391C09EC69D2.dita">Plug-in Framework</xref> section. </p> </li>

   127 </ul> </section>

   128 </conbody></concept>