px4-firmware/nuttx/lib/README.txt

lib
===

This directory contains numerous, small functions typically associated with
what you would expect to find in a standard C library.  The sub-directories
in this directory contain standard interface that can be executed by user-
mode programs.

Normally, NuttX is built with no protection and all threads running in kerne-
mode.  In that model, there is no real architectural distinction between
what is a kernel-mode program and what is a user-mode program; the system is
more like on multi-threaded program that all runs in kernel-mode.

But if the CONFIG_NUTTX_KERNEL option is selected, NuttX will be built into
distinct user-mode and kernel-mode sections.  In that case, most of the
code in the nuttx/ directory will run in kernel-mode with with exceptions
of (1) the user-mode "proxies" found in syscall/proxies, and (2) the
standard C library functions found in this directory.  In this build model,
it is critical to separate the user-mode OS interfaces in this way.

Sub-Directories
===============

The files in the lib/ directory are organized (mostly) according which file
in the include/ directory provides the prototype for library functions.  So
we have:

  libgen    - libgen.h
  math      - math.h and fixedmath.h
  mqueue    - pthread.h
  net       - Various network-related header files: netinet/ether.h, arpa/inet.h
  pthread   - pthread.h
  queue     - queue.h
  sched     - sched.h
  semaphore - semaphore.h
  stdio     - stdio.h
  stdlib    - stdlib.h
  string    - string.h
  time      - time.h
  unistd    - unistd.h

There is also a misc/ subdirectory that contains various internal functions
and interfaces from header files that are too few to warrant their own sub-
directory:

 misc       - Nonstandard "glue" logic, debug.h, crc32.h, dirent.h

Library Database
================

Information about functions available in the NuttX C library information is
maintained in a database.  That "database" is implemented as a simple comma-
separated-value file, lib.csv.  Most spreadsheets programs will accept this
format and can be used to maintain the library database.

This library database will (eventually) be used to generate symbol library
symbol table information that can be exported to external applications.

The format of the CSV file for each line is:

  Field 1: Function name
  Field 2: The header file that contains the function prototype
  Field 3: Condition for compilation
  Field 4: The type of function return value.
  Field 5 - N+5: The type of each of the N formal parameters of the function

Each type field has a format as follows:

  type name:
        For all simpler types
  formal type | actual type: 
        For array types where the form of the formal (eg. int parm[2])
        differs from the type of actual passed parameter (eg. int*).  This
        is necessary because you cannot do simple casts to array types.
  formal type | union member actual type | union member fieldname:
        A similar situation exists for unions.  For example, the formal
        parameter type union sigval -- You cannot cast a uintptr_t to
        a union sigval, but you can cast to the type of one of the union
        member types when passing the actual paramter.  Similarly, we
        cannot cast a union sigval to a uinptr_t either.  Rather, we need
        to cast a specific union member fieldname to uintptr_t.

NOTE: The tool mksymtab can be used to generate a symbol table from this CSV
file.  See nuttx/tools/README.txt for further details about the use of mksymtab.