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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>
</conbody></concept>