  S-Lang Library C Programmer's Guide (v2.3.0)
  John E. Davis <www.jedsoft.org>
  Sep 14, 2014
  ____________________________________________________________


  1.  Preface

  S-Lang is an interpreted language that was designed from the start to
  be easily embedded into a program to provide it with a powerful
  extension language. Examples of programs that use S-Lang as an
  extension language include the jed text editor and the slrn
  newsreader. Although S-Lang does not exist as a separate application,
  it is distributed with a quite capable program called slsh (``slang-
  shell'') that embeds the interpreter and allows one to execute S-Lang
  scripts, or simply experiment with S-Lang at an interactive prompt.
  Many of the the examples in this document are presented in the context
  of one of the above applications.

  S-Lang is also a programmer's library that permits a programmer to
  develop sophisticated platform-independent software. In addition to
  providing the S-Lang interpreter, the library provides facilities for
  screen management, keymaps, low-level terminal I/O, etc.

  1.1.  A Brief History of S-Lang

  I first began working on S-Lang sometime during the fall of 1992.  At
  that time I was writing a text editor (jed), which I wanted to endow
  with a macro language. It occurred to me that an application-
  independent language that could be embedded into the editor would
  prove more useful because I could envision embedding it into other
  programs. As a result, S-Lang was born.

  S-Lang was originally a stack language that supported a postscript-
  like syntax. For that reason, I named it S-Lang, where the S was
  supposed to emphasize its stack-based nature. About a year later, I
  began to work on a preparser that would allow one unfamiliar with
  stack based languages to make use of a more traditional infix syntax.
  Currently, the syntax of the language resembles C, nevertheless some
  postscript-like features still remain, e.g., the `%' character is
  still used as a comment delimiter.

  1.2.  Acknowledgements

  Since I first released S-Lang, I have received a lot feedback about
  the library and the language from many people. This has given me the
  opportunity and pleasure to interact with a number of people to make
  the library portable and easy to use. In particular, I would like to
  thank the following individuals:

  Luchesar Ionkov for his comments and criticisms of the syntax of the
  language. He was the person who made me realize that the low-level
  byte-code engine should be totally type-independent.  He also improved
  the tokenizer and preparser and impressed upon me that the language
  needed a grammar.

  Mark Olesen for his many patches to various aspects of the library and
  his support on AIX. He also contributed a lot to the pre-processing
  (SLprep) routines.

  John Burnell for the OS/2 port of the video and keyboard routines. He
  also made value suggestions regarding the interpreter interface.

  Darrel Hankerson for cleaning up and unifying some of the code and the
  makefiles.

  Dominik Wujastyk who was always willing to test new releases of the
  library.

  Michael Elkins for his work on the curses emulation.

  Hunter Goatley, Andy Harper, Martin P.J. Zinser, and Jouk Jansen for
  their VMS support.

  Dave Sims and Chin Huang for Windows 95 and Windows NT support, and
  Dino Sangoi for the Windows DLL support.

  I am also grateful to many other people who send in bug-reports, bug-
  fixes, little enhancements, and suggestions, and so on. Without such
  community involvement, S-Lang would not be as well-tested and stable
  as it is. Finally, I would like to thank my wife for her support and
  understanding while I spent long weekend hours developing the library.

  2.  Introduction

  S-Lang is a C programmer's library that includes routines for the
  rapid development of sophisticated, user friendly, multi-platform
  applications.  The S-Lang library includes the following:

  o  Low level tty input routines for reading single characters at a
     time.

  o  Keymap routines for defining keys and manipulating multiple
     keymaps.

  o  A high-level keyprocessing interface (SLkp) for handling function
     and arrow keys.

  o  High level screen management routines for manipulating both
     monochrome and color terminals. These routines are very efficient.
     (SLsmg)

  o  Low level terminal-independent routines for manipulating the
     display of a terminal. (SLtt)

  o  Routines for reading single line input with line editing and recall
     capabilities. (SLrline)

  o  Searching functions: both ordinary searches and regular expression
     searches. (SLsearch)

  o  An embedded stack-based language interpreter with a C-like syntax.

  The library is currently available for OS/2, MSDOS, Unix, and VMS
  systems. For the most part, the interface to library routines has been
  implemented in such a way that it appears to be platform independent
  from the point of view of the application. In addition, care has been
  taken to ensure that the routines are ``independent'' of one another
  as much as possible. For example, although the keymap routines require
  keyboard input, they are not tied to S-Lang's keyboard input
  routines--- one can use a different keyboard getkey routine if one
  desires. This also means that linking to only part of the S-Lang
  library does not pull the whole library into the application. Thus, S-
  Lang applications tend to be relatively small in comparison to
  programs that use libraries with similar capabilities.

  3.  Error Handling

  Many of the S-Lang functions return 0 upon success or -1 to signify
  failure. Other functions may return NULL to indicate failure. In
  addition, upon failure, many will set the error state of the library
  to a value that indicates the nature of the error. The value of this
  state may be queried via the SLang_get_error function. This function
  will return 0 to indicate that there is no error, or a non-zero value
  such as one of the following constants:

            SL_Any_Error                      SL_Index_Error
            SL_OS_Error                       SL_Parse_Error
            SL_Malloc_Error                   SL_Syntax_Error
            SL_IO_Error                       SL_DuplicateDefinition_Error
            SL_Write_Error                    SL_UndefinedName_Error
            SL_Read_Error                     SL_Usage_Error
            SL_Open_Error                     SL_Application_Error
            SL_RunTime_Error                  SL_Internal_Error
            SL_InvalidParm_Error              SL_NotImplemented_Error
            SL_TypeMismatch_Error             SL_LimitExceeded_Error
            SL_UserBreak_Error                SL_Forbidden_Error
            SL_Stack_Error                    SL_Math_Error
            SL_StackOverflow_Error            SL_DivideByZero_Error
            SL_StackUnderflow_Error           SL_ArithOverflow_Error
            SL_ReadOnly_Error                 SL_ArithUnderflow_Error
            SL_VariableUninitialized_Error    SL_Domain_Error
            SL_NumArgs_Error                  SL_Data_Error
            SL_Unknown_Error                  SL_Unicode_Error
            SL_Import_Error                   SL_InvalidUTF8_Error

  For example, if a function tries to allocate memory but fails, then
  SLang_get_error will return SL_Malloc_Error.

  If the application makes use of the interpreter, then it is important
  that application-specific functions called from the interpreter set
  the error state of the library in order for exception handling to
  work. This may be accomplished using the SLang_set_error function,
  e.g.,

            if (NULL == (fp = fopen (file, "r")))
              SLang_set_error (SL_Open_Error);

  Often it is desirable to give error message that contains more
  information about the error. The SLang_verror function may be used for
  this purpose:

            if (NULL == (fp = fopen (file, "r")))
              SLang_verror (SL_Open_Error, "Failed to open %s: errno=%d",
                            file, errno);

  By default, SLang_verror will write the error message to stderr. For
  applications that make use of the SLsmg routines it is probably better
  for the error message to be printed to a specific area of the display.
  The SLang_Error_Hook variable may be used to redirect error messages
  to an application defined function, e.g.,

            static void write_error (char *err)
            {
               SLsmg_gotorc (0, 0);
               SLsmg_set_color (ERROR_COLOR);
               SLsmg_write_string (err);
            }
            int main (int argc, char **argv)
            {
               /* Redirect error messages to write_error */
               SLang_Error_Hook = write_error;
                     .
                     .
            }

  Under extremely rare circumstances the library will call the C exit
  function causing the application to exit. This will happen if the
  SLtt_get_terminfo is called but the terminal is not sufficiently
  powerful. If this behavior is undesirable, then another function
  exists (SLtt_initialize) that returns an error code. The other times
  the library will exit are when the interpreter is called upon to do
  something but has not been properly initialized by the application.
  Such a condition is regarded as misuse of the libary and should be
  caught by routine testing of the application during development. In
  any case, when the library does call the exit function, it will call
  an application-defined exit hook specified by the
  SLang_Exit_Error_Hook variable:

            static int exit_error_hook (char *fmt, va_list ap)
            {
               fprintf (stderr, "Fatal Error.  Reason:");
               vfprintf (stderr, fmt, va_list);
            }
            int main (int argc, char **argv)
            {
               SLang_Exit_Error_Hook = exit_error_hook;
                 .
                 .
            }

  The idea is that the hook can be used to perform some cleanup, free
  resources, and other tasks that the application needs to do for a
  clean exit.

  4.  Unicode Support

  S-Lang has native support for the UTF-8 encoding of unicode in a
  number of its interfaces including the the SLsmg screen mangement
  interface as well as the interpreter. UTF-8 is a variable length
  multibyte encoding where unicode characters are represented by one to
  six bytes. A technical description of the UTF-encoding is beyond the
  scope of this document, and as such the reader is advised to look
  elsewhere for a more detailed specification of the encoding.

  By default, the library's handling of UTF-8 is turned off. It may be
  enabled by a call to the SLutf8_enable function:

           int SLutf8_enable (int mode)

  If the value of mode is 1, then the library will be put in UTF-8 mode.
  If the value of mode is 0, then the library will be initialized with
  UTF-8 support disabled. If the value is -1, then the mode will deter-
  mined through an OS-dependent manner, e.g., for Unix, the standard
  locale mechanism will be used. The return value of this function will
  be 1 if UTF-8 support was activated, or 0 if not.

  The above function determines the UTF-8 state of the library as a
  whole. For some purposes it may be desirable to have more fine-grained
  control of the UTF-8 support. For example, one might be using the jed
  editor to view a UTF-8 encoded file but the terminal associated with
  the editor may not support UTF-8. In such a case, one would want the
  SLsmg interface to be in UTF-8 mode but lower-level SLtt interface to
  not be in UTF-8 mode. Hence, the following activation functions are
  also provided:

           int SLsmg_utf8_enable (int mode);
           int SLtt_utf8_enable (int mode);
           int SLinterp_utf8_enable (int mode);

  Note that once one of these interface specific functions has been
  called, any further calls to the umbrella function SLutf8_enable will
  have no effect on that interface. For this reason, it is best to call
  SLutf8_enable first before the calling one of the interface-specific
  functions.

  Until support for Unicode is more widespread among users, it is
  expected that most users will still be using a national character set
  such as ASCII or iso-8869-1. For example, iso-8869-1 is a very
  widespread character set used on Usenet. As a result, applications
  will still have to provide support for such character sets.
  Unfortunately there appears to be no best way to do this.

  For the most part, the UTF-8 support should be largely transparent to
  the user. For example, the interpreter treats all multibyte characters
  as a single character which means that the user does not have to be
  concerned about the internal representation of a character. Rather one
  must keep in mind the distinction between a character and a byte.

  5.  Interpreter Interface

  The S-Lang library provides an interpreter that when embedded into an
  application, makes the application extensible. Examples of programs
  that embed the interpreter include the jed editor and the slrn
  newsreader.

  Embedding the interpreter is easy. The hard part is to decide what
  application specific built-in or intrinsic functions should be
  provided by the application. The S-Lang library provides some pre-
  defined intrinsic functions, such as string processing functions, and
  simple file input-output routines. However, the basic philosophy
  behind the interpreter is that it is not a standalone program and it
  derives much of its power from the application that embeds it.

  5.1.  Embedding the Interpreter

  Only one function needs to be called to embed the S-Lang interpreter
  into an application: SLang_init_slang. This function initializes the
  interpreter's data structures and adds some intrinsic functions:

             if (-1 == SLang_init_slang ())
               exit (EXIT_FAILURE);

  This function does not provide file input output intrinsic nor does it
  provide mathematical functions. To make these as well as some posix
  system calls available use

            if ((-1 == SLang_init_slang ())    /* basic interpreter functions */
                || (-1 == SLang_init_slmath ()) /* sin, cos, etc... */
                || (-1 == SLang_init_array ()) /* sum, min, max, transpose... */
                || (-1 == SLang_init_stdio ()) /* stdio file I/O */
                || (-1 == SLang_init_ospath ()) /* path_concat, etc... */
                || (-1 == SLang_init_posix_dir ()) /* mkdir, stat, etc. */
                || (-1 == SLang_init_posix_process ()) /* getpid, umask, etc. */
                || (-1 == SLang_init_posix_io ()) /* open, close, read, ... */
                || (-1 == SLang_init_signal ()) /* signal, alarm, ... */
               )
              exit (EXIT_FAILURE);

  If you intend to enable all intrinsic functions, then it is simpler to
  initialize the interpreter via

            if (-1 == SLang_init_all ())
              exit (EXIT_FAILURE);

  See the S-Lang Library Intrinsic Function Reference for more informa-
  tion about the intrinsic functions.

  5.2.  Calling the Interpreter

  There are several ways of calling the interpreter. The two most common
  method is to load a file containing S-Lang code, or to load a string.

  5.2.1.  Loading Files

  The SLang_load_file and SLns_load_file functions may be used to
  interpret a file. Both these functions return zero if successful, or
  -1 upon failure. If either of these functions fail, the interpreter
  will accept no more code unless the error state is cleared. This is
  done by calling SLang_restart function to set the interpreter to its
  default state:

            if (-1 == SLang_load_file ("site.sl"))
              {
                 /* Clear the error and reset the interpreter */
                 SLang_restart (1);
              }

  When a file is loaded via SLang_load_file, any non-public variables
  and functions defined in the file will be placed into a namespace that
  is local to the file itself. The SLns_load_file function may be used
  to load a file using a specified namespace, e.g.,

            if (-1 == SLns_load_file ("site.sl", "NS"))
              {
                SLang_restart (1);
                SLang_set_error (0);
              }

  will load site.sl into a namespace called NS. If such a namespace does
  not exist, then it will be created.

  Both the SLang_load_file and SLns_load_file functions search for files
  along an application-specified search path. This path may be set using
  the SLpath_set_load_path function, as well as from interpeted code via
  the set_slang_load_path function. By default, no search path is
  defined.

  NOTE: It is highly recommended that an application embedding the
  interpreter include the slsh lib directory in the search path. The .sl
  files that are part of slsh are both useful and and should work with
  any application embedding the interpreter.  Moreover, if the
  application permits dynamically loaded modules, then there are a
  growing number of excellent quality modules for slsh that can be
  utilized by it. Applications that follow this recommendation are said
  to be conforming.

  Files are searched as follows: If the name begins with the equivalent
  of "./" or "../", then it is searched for with respect to the current
  directory, and not along the load-path.  If no such file exists, then
  an error will be generated. Otherwise, the file is searched for in
  each of the directories of the load-path by concatenating the path
  element with the specified file name. The first such file found to
  exist by this process will be loaded. If a matching file still has not
  been found, and the file name lacks an extension, then the path is
  searched with ".sl" and ".slc" appended to the filename. If two such
  files are found (one ending with ".sl" and the other with ".slc"),
  then the more recent of the two will be used. If no matching file has
  been found by this process, then the search will cease and an error
  generated.

  The search path is a delimiter separated list of directories that
  specify where the interpreter looks for files. By default, the value
  of the delimiter is OS-dependent following the convention of the
  underlying OS. For example, on Unix the delimiter is represented by a
  colon, on DOS/Windows it is a semi-colon, and on VMS it is a space.
  The SLpath_set_delimiter and SLpath_get_delimiter may be used to set
  and query the delimiter's value, respectively.

  5.2.2.  Loading Strings

  There are several other mechanisms for interacting with the
  interpreter. For example, the SLang_load_string function loads a
  string into the interpreter and interprets it:

           if (-1 == SLang_load_string ("message (\"hello\");"))
             return;

  Similarly, the SLns_load_string function may be used to load a string
  into a specified namespace.

  Typically, an interactive application will load a file via
  SLang_load_file and then go into a loop that consists of reading lines
  of input and sending them to the interpreter, e.g.,

             while (EOF != fgets (buf, sizeof (buf), stdin))
               {
                  if (-1 == SLang_load_string (buf))
                    {
                       SLang_restart (1);
                    }
               }

  Finally, some applications such as jed and slrn use another method of
  interacting with the interpreter. They read key sequences from the
  keyboard and map those key sequences to interpreter functions via the
  S-Lang keymap interface.

  5.3.  Intrinsic Functions

  An intrinsic function is simply a function that is written in C and is
  made available to the interpreter as a built-in function. For this
  reason, the words `intrinsic' and `built-in' are often used
  interchangeably.

  Applications are expected to add application specific functions to the
  interpreter. For example, jed adds nearly 300 editor-specific
  intrinsic functions. The application designer should think carefully
  about what intrinsic functions to add to the interpreter.

  5.3.1.  Restrictions on Intrinsic Functions

  When implementing intrinsic functions, it is necessary to follow a few
  rules to cooperate with the interpreter.

  The C version of an intrinsic function takes only pointer arguments.
  This is because when the interpreter calls an intrinsic function, it
  passes values to the function by reference and not by value. For
  example, intrinsic with the declarations:

            int intrinsic_0 (void);
            int intrinsic_1 (char *s);
            void intrinsic_2 (char *s, int *i);
            void intrinsic_3 (int *i, double *d, double *e);

  are all valid. However,

            int invalid_1 (char *s, int len);

  is not valid since the len parameter is not a pointer.

  The return value of an intrinsic function must be one of the following
  types: void, char, short, int, long, double, char *, as well as
  unsigned versions of the integer types. A function such as

           int *invalid (void);

  is not permitted since int* is not a valid return-type for an intrin-
  sic function. Any other type of value can be passed back to the inter-
  preter by explicitly pushing the object onto the interpreter's stack
  via the appropriate "push" function.

  The current implementation limits the number of arguments of an
  intrinsic function to 7. The "pop" functions can be used to allow the
  function to take an arbitrary number as seen from an interpreter
  script.

  Another restriction is that the intrinsic function should regard all
  its parameters as pointers to constant objects and make no attempt to
  modify the value to which they point. For example,

             void truncate (char *s)
             {
                s[0] = 0;
             }

  is illegal since the function modifies the string s.

  5.3.2.  Adding a New Intrinsic

  There are two basic mechanisms for adding an intrinsic function to the
  interpreter: SLadd_intrinsic_function and SLadd_intrin_fun_table.
  Functions may be added to a specified namespace via
  SLns_add_intrinsic_function and SLns_add_intrin_fun_table functions.

  As an specific example, consider a function that will cause the
  program to exit via the exit C library function. It is not possible to
  make this function an intrinsic because it does not meet the
  specifications for an intrinsic function that were described earlier.
  However, one can call exit from a function that is suitable, e.g.,

            void intrin_exit (int *code)
            {
               exit (*code);
            }

  This function may be made available to the interpreter as an intrinsic
  via the SLadd_intrinsic_function routine:

            if (-1 == SLadd_intrinsic_function ("exit", (FVOID_STAR) intrin_exit,
                                                SLANG_VOID_TYPE, 1,
                                                SLANG_INT_TYPE))
              exit (EXIT_FAILURE);

  This statement basically tells the interpreter that intrin_exit is a
  function that returns nothing and takes a single argument: a pointer
  to an integer (SLANG_INT_TYPE).  A user can call this function from
  within the interpreter via

            message ("Calling the exit function");
            exit (0);

  After printing a message, this will cause the intrin_exit function to
  execute, which in turn calls exit.

  The most convenient mechanism for adding new intrinsic functions is to
  create a table of SLang_Intrin_Fun_Type objects and add the table via
  the SLadd_intrin_fun_table function. The table will look like:

           SLang_Intrin_Fun_Type My_Intrinsics [] =
           {
            /* table entries */
             MAKE_INTRINSIC_N(...),
             MAKE_INTRINSIC_N(...),
                   .
                   .
             MAKE_INTRINSIC_N(...),
             SLANG_END_INTRIN_FUN_TABLE
           };

  Construction of the table entries may be facilitated using a set of
  MAKE_INTRINSIC macros defined in slang.h. The main macro is called
  MAKE_INTRINSIC_N and takes 11 arguments:

           MAKE_INTRINSIC_N(name, funct-ptr, return-type, num-args,
                            arg-1-type, arg-2-type, ... arg-7-type)

  Here name is the name of the intrinsic function that the interpreter
  is to give to the function. func-ptr is a pointer to the intrinsic
  function taking num-args and returning ret-type. The final 7 arguments
  specify the argument types. For example, the intrin_exit intrinsic
  described above may be added to the table using

           MAKE_INTRINSIC_N("exit", intrin_exit, SLANG_VOID_TYPE, 1,
                            SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0,0,0,0,0,0)

  While MAKE_INTRINSIC_N is the main macro for constructing table
  entries, slang.h defines other macros that may prove useful. In
  particular, an entry for the intrin_exit function may also be created
  using any of the following forms:

           MAKE_INTRINSIC_1("exit", intrin_exit, SLANG_VOID_TYPE, SLANG_INT_TYPE)
           MAKE_INTRINSIC_I("exit", intrin_exit, SLANG_VOID_TYPE)

  See slang.h for related macros. You are also encouraged to look at,
  e.g., slang/src/slstd.c for a more extensive examples.

  The table may be added via the SLadd_intrin_fun_table function, e.g.,

           if (-1 == SLadd_intrin_fun_table (My_Intrinsics, NULL))
             {
                /* an error occurred */
             }

  Please note that there is no need to load a given table more than
  once, and it is considered to be an error on the part of the applica-
  tion it adds the same table multiple times. For performance reasons,
  no checking is performed by the library to see if a table has already
  been added.

  Earlier it was mentioned that intrinsics may be added to a specified
  namespace. To this end, one must first get a pointer to the namespace
  via the SLns_create_namespace function. The following example
  illustrates how this function is used to add the My_Intrinsics table
  to a namespace called my:

          SLang_NameSpace_Type *ns = SLns_create_namespace ("my");
          if (ns == NULL)
            return -1;

          return SLns_add_intrin_fun_table (ns, My_Intrinsics, "__MY__"));

  5.3.3.  More Complicated Intrinsics

  The intrinsic functions described in the previous example were
  functions that took a fixed number of arguments. In this section we
  explore more complex intrinsics such as those that take a variable
  number of arguments.

  Consider a function that takes two double precision numbers and
  returns the lesser:

            double intrin_min (double *a, double *b)
            {
               if (*a < *b) return *a;
               return *b;
            }

  This function may be added to a table of intrinsics using

           MAKE_INTRINSIC_2("vmin", intrin_min, SLANG_DOUBLE_TYPE,
                            SLANG_DOUBLE_TYPE, SLANG_DOUBLE_TYPE)

  It is useful to extend this function to take an arbitray number of
  arguments and return the lesser. Consider the following variant:

           double intrin_min_n (int *num_ptr)
           {
              double min_value, x;
              unsigned int num = (unsigned int) *num_ptr;

              if (-1 == SLang_pop_double (&min_value))
                return 0.0;
              num--;

              while (num > 0)
                {
                   num--;
                   if (-1 == SLang_pop_double (&x))
                     return 0.0;
                   if (x < min_value) min_value = x;
                }
              return min_value;
           }

  Here the number to compare is passed to the function and the actual
  numbers are removed from the stack via the SLang_pop_double function.
  A suitable table entry for it is

           MAKE_INTRINSIC_I("vmin", intrin_min_n, SLANG_DOUBLE_TYPE)

  This function would be used in an interpreter script via a statement
  such as

             variable xmin = vmin (x0, x1, x2, x3, x4, 5);

  which computes the smallest of 5 values.

  The problem with this intrinsic function is that the user must
  explicitly specify how many numbers to compare. It would be more
  convenient to simply use

             variable xmin = vmin (x0, x1, x2, x3, x4);

  An intrinsic function can query the value of the variable
  SLang_Num_Function_Args to obtain the necessary information:

           double intrin_min (void)
           {
              double min_value, x;

              unsigned int num = SLang_Num_Function_Args;

              if (-1 == SLang_pop_double (&min_value, NULL, NULL))
                return 0.0;
              num--;

              while (num > 0)
                {
                   num--;
                   if (-1 == SLang_pop_double (&x, NULL, NULL))
                     return 0.0;
                   if (x < min_value) min_value = x;
                }
              return min_value;
           }

  This may be declared as an intrinsic using:

           MAKE_INTRINSIC_0("vmin", intrin_min, SLANG_DOUBLE_TYPE)

  5.4.  Intrinsic Variables

  It is possible to access an application's global variables from within
  the interpreter. The current implementation supports the access of
  variables of type int, char *, and double.

  There are two basic methods of making an intrinsic variable available
  to the interpreter. The most straight forward method is to use the
  function SLadd_intrinsic_variable:

            int SLadd_intrinsic_variable (char *name, VOID_STAR addr,
                                          SLtype data_type,
                                          int read_only);

  For example, suppose that I is an integer variable, e.g.,

            int I;

  One can make it known to the interpreter as I_Variable via a statement
  such as

            if (-1 == SLadd_intrinsic_variable ("I_Variable", &I,
                                                 SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0))
              exit (EXIT_FAILURE);

  Similarly, if S is declared as

           char *S;

  then

            if (-1 == SLadd_intrinsic_variable ("S_Variable", &S,
                                                 SLANG_STRING_TYPE, 1))
              exit (EXIT_FAILURE);

  makes S available as a read-only variable with the name S_Variable.
  Note that if a pointer variable is made available to the interpreter,
  it should be declared as being read-only to prevent the interpreter
  from changing the pointer's value.

  It is important to note that if S were declared as an array of
  characters, e.g.,

            char S[256];

  then it would not be possible to make it directly available to the
  interpreter. However, one could create a pointer to it, i.e.,

            char *S_Ptr = S;

  and make S_Ptr available as a read-only variable.

  One should not make the mistake of trying to use the same address for
  different variables as the following example illustrates:

            int do_not_try_this (void)
            {
               static char *names[3] = {"larry", "curly", "moe"};
               unsigned int i;

               for (i = 0; i < 3; i++)
                 {
                    int value;
                    if (-1 == SLadd_intrinsic_variable (names[i], (VOID_STAR) &value,
                                                        SLANG_INT_TYPE, 1))
                      return -1;
                 }
               return 0;
            }

  Not only does this piece of code create intrinsic variables that use
  the same address, it also uses the address of a local variable that
  will go out of scope.

  The most convenient method for adding many intrinsic variables to the
  interpreter is to create an array of SLang_Intrin_Var_Type objects and
  then add the array via SLadd_intrin_var_table.  For example, the array

           static SLang_Intrin_Var_Type Intrin_Vars [] =
           {
              MAKE_VARIABLE("I_Variable", &I, SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0),
              MAKE_VARIABLE("S_Variable", &S_Ptr, SLANG_STRING_TYPE, 1),
              SLANG_END_TABLE
           };

  may be added via

           if (-1 == SLadd_intrin_var_table (Intrin_Vars, NULL))
             exit (EXIT_FAILURE);

  It should be rather obvious that the arguments to the MAKE_VARIABLE
  macro correspond to the parameters of the SLadd_intrinsic_variable
  function.

  Finally, variables may be added to a specific namespace via the
  SLns_add_intrin_var_table and SLns_add_intrinsic_variable functions.

  5.5.  Aggregate Data Objects

  An aggregate data object is an object that can contain more than one
  data value. The S-Lang interpreter supports several such objects:
  arrays, structure, and associative arrays. In the following sections,
  information about interacting with these objects is given.

  5.5.1.  Arrays

  An intrinsic function may interact with an array in several different
  ways. For example, an intrinsic may create an array and return it.
  The basic functions for manipulating arrays include:

          SLang_create_array
          SLang_pop_array_of_type
          SLang_push_array
          SLang_free_array
          SLang_get_array_element
          SLang_set_array_element

  The use of these functions will be illustrated via a few simple exam-
  ples.

  The first example shows how to create an return an array of strings to
  the interpreter. In particular, the names of the four seasons of the
  year will be returned:

           void months_of_the_year (void)
           {
              static char *seasons[4] =
                {
                   "Spring", "Summer", "Autumn", "Winter"
                };
              SLang_Array_Type *at;
              SLindex_Type i, four;

              four = 4;
              at = SLang_create_array (SLANG_STRING_TYPE, 0, NULL, &four, 1);
              if (at == NULL)
                return;

              /* Now set the elements of the array */
              for (i = 0; i < 4; i++)
                {
                  if (-1 == SLang_set_array_element (at, &i, &seasons[i]))
                    {
                       SLang_free_array (at);
                       return;
                    }
                }

             (void) SLang_push_array (at, 0);
             SLang_free_array (at);
           }

  This example illustrates several points:

  First of all, the SLang_create_array function was used to create a 1
  dimensional array of 4 strings. Since this function could fail, its
  return value was checked. Also SLindex_Type was used for the array
  size and index types. In S-Lang version 2, SLindex_Type is typedefed
  to be an int. However, as this will change in a future version of the
  library, SLindex_Type should be used.

  The SLang_set_array_element function was used to set the elements of
  the newly created array. Note that the address containing the value of
  the array element was passed and not the value of the array element
  itself. That is,

           SLang_set_array_element (at, &i, seasons[i])

  was not used. The return value from this function was also checked
  because it too could also fail.

  Finally, the array was pushed onto the interpreter's stack and then it
  was freed. It is important to understand why it was freed. This is
  because arrays are reference-counted. When the array was created, it
  was returned with a reference count of 1. When it was pushed, the
  reference count was bumped up to 2. Then since it was nolonger needed
  by the function, SLang_free_array was called to decrement the
  reference count back to 1. For convenience, the second argument to
  SLang_push_array determines whether or not it is to also free the
  array. So, instead of the two function calls:

          (void) SLang_push_array (at, 0);
          SLang_free_array (at);

  it is preferable to combine them as

          (void) SLang_push_array (at, 1);

  The second example returns a diagonal array of a specified size to the
  stack. A diagonal array is a 2-d array with all elements zero except
  for those along the diagonal, which have a value of one:

          void make_diagonal_array (SLindex_Type n)
          {
             SLang_Array_Type *at;
             SLindex_Type dims[2];
             SLindex_Type i, one;

             dims[0] = dims[1] = n;
             at = SLang_create_array (SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0, NULL, dims, 2);
             if (at == NULL)
               return;

             one = 1;
             for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
               {
                  dims[0] = dims[1] = i;
                  if (-1 == SLang_set_array_element (at, dims, &one))
                    {
                       SLang_free_array (at);
                       return;
                    }
               }

             (void) SLang_push_array (at, 1);
          }

  In this example, only the diagonal elements of the array were set.
  This is bacause when the array was created, all its elements were set
  to zero.

  Now consider an example that acts upon an existing array. In
  particular, consider one that computes the trace of a 2-d matrix,
  i.e., the sum of the diagonal elements:

          double compute_trace (void)
          {
             SLang_Array_Type *at;
             double trace;
             SLindex_Type dims[2];

             if (-1 == SLang_pop_array_of_type (&at, SLANG_DOUBLE_TYPE))
               return 0.0;

             /* We want a 2-d square matrix.  If the matrix is 1-d and has only one
                element, then return that element. */
             trace = 0.0;
             if (((at->num_dims == 1) && (at->dims[0] == 1))
                 || ((at->num_dims == 2) && (at->dims[0] == at->dims[1])))
               {
                  double dtrace;
                  SLindex_Type n = at->dims[0];

                  for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
                    {
                       dims[0] = dims[1] = i;
                       (void) SLang_get_array_element (at, &dims, &dtrace);
                       trace += dtrace;
                    }
               }
            else SLang_verror (SL_TYPE_MISMATCH, "Expecting a square matrix");

            SLang_free_array (at);
            return trace;
          }

  In this example, SLang_pop_array_of_type was used to pop an array of
  doubles from the stack. This function will make implicit typecasts in
  order to return an array of the requested type.

  5.5.2.  Structures

  For the purposes of this section, we shall differentiate structures
  according to whether or not they correspond to an application defined
  C structure. Those that do are called intrinsic structures, and those
  do not are called S-Lang interpreter structures.

  5.5.2.1.  Interpreter Structures

  The following simple example shows one method that may be used to
  create and return a structure with a string and integer field to the
  interpreter's stack:

           int push_struct_example (char *string_value, int int_value)
           {
              char *field_names[2];
              SLtype field_types[2];
              VOID_STAR field_values[2];

              field_names[0] = "string_field";
              field_types[0] = SLANG_STRING_TYPE;
              field_values[0] = &string_value;

              field_names[1] = "int_field";
              field_types[1] = SLANG_INT_TYPE;
              field_values[1] = &int_value;

              if (-1 == SLstruct_create_struct (2, field_names,
                                                   field_types, field_values))
                return -1;
              return 0;
           }

  Here, SLstruct_create_struct is used to push a structure with the
  specified field names and values onto the interpreter's stack.

  A simpler mechanism exists provided that one has already defined a C
  structure with a description of how the structure is laid out. For
  example, consider a C structure defined by

           typedef struct
           {
              char *s;
              int i;
           }
           SI_Type;

  Its layout may be specified via a table of SLang_CStruct_Field_Type
  entries:

           SLang_CStruct_Field_Type SI_Type_Layout [] =
           {
             MAKE_CSTRUCT_FIELD(SI_Type, s, "string_field", SLANG_STRING_TYPE, 0),
             MAKE_CSTRUCT_FIELD(SI_Type, i, "int_field", SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0),
             SLANG_END_CSTRUCT_TABLE
           };

  Here, MAKE_CSTRUCT_FIELD is a macro taking 5 arguments:

           MAKE_CSTRUCT_FIELD(C-structure-type,
                              C-field-name,
                              slang-field-name,
                              slang-data-type,
                              is-read-only)

  The first argument is the structure type, the second is the name of a
  field of the structure, the third is a string that specifies the name
  of the corresponding field of the S-Lang structure, the fourth argu-
  ment specifies the field's type, and the last argument specifies
  whether or not the field should be regarded as read-only.

  Once the layout of the structure has been specified, pushing a S-Lang
  version of the structure is trival:

           int push_struct_example (char *string_value, int int_value)
           {
              SI_Type si;

              si.s = string_value;
              si.i = int_value;
              return SLang_push_cstruct ((VOID_STAR)&si, SI_Type_Layout);
           }

  This mechanism of structure creation also permits a S-Lang structure
  to be passed to an intrinsic function through the use of the
  SLang_pop_cstruct routine, e.g.,

            void print_si_struct (void)
            {
               SI_Type si;
               if (-1 == SLang_pop_cstruct ((VOID_STAR)&si, SI_Type_Layout))
                 return;
               printf ("si.i=%d", si.i);
               printf ("si.s=%s", si.s);
               SLang_free_cstruct ((VOID_STAR)&si, SI_Type_Layout);
            }

  Assuming print_si_struct exists as an intrinsic function, the S-Lang
  code

            variable s = struct {string_field, int_field};
            s.string_field = "hello";
            s.int_field = 20;
            print_si_struct (s);

  would result in the display of

            si.i=20;
            si.s=hello

  Note that the SLang_free_cstruct function was called after the con-
  tents of si were nolonger needed. This was necessary because
  SLang_pop_cstruct allocated memory to set the char *s field of si.
  Calling SLang_free_cstruct frees up such memory.

  Now consider the following:

           typedef struct
           {
              pid_t pid;
              gid_t group;
           }
           X_t;

  How should the layout of this structure be defined? One might be
  tempted to use:

           SLang_CStruct_Field_Type X_t_Layout [] =
           {
             MAKE_CSTRUCT_FIELD(X_t, pid, "pid", SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0),
             MAKE_CSTRUCT_FIELD(X_t, group, "group", SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0),
             SLANG_END_CSTRUCT_TABLE
           };

  However, this assumes pid_t and gid_t have been typedefed as ints. But
  what if gid_t is a short? In such a case, using

             MAKE_CSTRUCT_FIELD(X_t, group, "group", SLANG_SHORT_TYPE, 0),

  would be the appropriate entry for the group field. Of course, one has
  no way of knowing how gid_t is declared on other systems. For this
  reason, it is preferable to use the MAKE_CSTRUCT_INT_FIELD macro in
  cases involving integer valued fields, e.g.,

           SLang_CStruct_Field_Type X_t_Layout [] =
           {
             MAKE_CSTRUCT_INT_FIELD(X_t, pid, "pid", 0),
             MAKE_CSTRUCT_INT_FIELD(X_t, group, "group", 0),
             SLANG_END_CSTRUCT_TABLE
           };

  Before leaving this section, it is important to mention that access to
  character array fields is not permitted via this interface. That is, a
  structure such as

            typedef struct
            {
               char name[32];
            }
            Name_Type;

  is not supported since char name[32] is not a SLANG_STRING_TYPE
  object. Always keep in mind that a SLANG_STRING_TYPE object is a char
  *.

  5.5.2.2.  Intrinsic Structures

  Here we show how to make intrinsic structures available to the
  interpreter.

  The simplest interface is to structure pointers and not to the actual
  structures themselves. The latter would require the interpreter to be
  involved with the creation and destruction of the structures. Dealing
  with the pointers themselves is far simpler.

  As an example, consider an object such as

           typedef struct _Window_Type
           {
              char *title;
              int row;
              int col;
              int width;
              int height;
           } Window_Type;

  which defines a window object with a title, size (width, height), and
  location (row, col).

  We can make variables of type Window_Type available to the interpreter
  via a table as follows:

          static SLang_IStruct_Field_Type Window_Type_Field_Table [] =
          {
            MAKE_ISTRUCT_FIELD(Window_Type, title, "title", SLANG_STRING_TYPE, 1),
            MAKE_ISTRUCT_FIELD(Window_Type, row, "row", SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0),
            MAKE_ISTRUCT_FIELD(Window_Type, col, "col", SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0),
            MAKE_ISTRUCT_FIELD(Window_Type, width, "width", SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0),
            MAKE_ISTRUCT_FIELD(Window_Type, height, "height", SLANG_INT_TYPE, 0),
            SLANG_END_ISTRUCT_TABLE
          };

  More precisely, this defines the layout of the Window_Type structure.
  Here, the title has been declared as a read-only field. Using

            MAKE_ISTRUCT_FIELD(Window_Type, title, "title", SLANG_STRING_TYPE, 0),

  would allow read-write access.

  Now suppose that My_Window is a pointer to a Window_Type object, i.e.,

           Window_Type *My_Window;

  We can make this variable available to the interpreter via the
  SLadd_istruct_table function:

           if (-1 == SLadd_istruct_table (Window_Type_Field_Table,
                                          (VOID_STAR) &My_Window,
                                          "My_Win"))
             exit (1);

  This creates a S-Lang interpreter variable called My_Win whose value
  corresponds to the My_Win structure. This would permit one to access
  the fields of My_Window via S-Lang statements such as

            define set_width_and_height (w,h)
            {
                My_Win.width = w;
                My_Win.height = h;
            }

  It is extremely important to understand that the interface described
  in this section does not allow the interpreter to create new instances
  of Window_Type objects. The interface merely defines an association or
  correspondence between an intrinsic structure pointer and a S-Lang
  variable. For example, if the value of My_Window is NULL, then My_Win
  would also be NULL.

  One should be careful in allowing read/write access to character
  string fields. If read/write access is allowed, then the application
  should always use the SLang_create_slstring and SLang_free_slstring
  functions to set the character string field of the structure.

  5.6.  Signals

  If your program that embeds the interpreter processes signals, then it
  may be undesirable to allow access to all signals from the
  interpreter. For example, if your program has a signal handler for
  SIGHUP then it is possible that an interpreter script could specify a
  different signal handler, which may or may not be desirable.  If you
  do not want to allow the interpreter access to some signal, then that
  signal can be made off-limits to the interpreter via the
  SLsig_forbid_signal function:

           /* forbid a signal handler for SIGHUP */
           SLsig_forbid_signal (SIGHUP, 1);

           /* Allow a signal handler for SIGTERM */
           SLsig_forbid_signal (SIGTERM, 0);

  By default, all signals are allowed access from the interpreter.

  5.7.  Exceptions

  6.  Keyboard Interface

  S-Lang's keyboard interface has been designed to allow an application
  to read keyboard input from the user in a system-independent manner.
  The interface consists of a set of low routines for reading single
  character data as well as a higher level interface (SLkp) which
  utilize S-Lang's keymap facility for reading multi-character
  sequences.

  To initialize the interface, one must first call the function
  SLang_init_tty. Before exiting the program, the function
  SLang_reset_tty must be called to restore the keyboard interface to
  its original state. Once initialized, the low-level SLang_getkey
  function may be used to read single keyboard characters from the
  terminal. An application using the higher-level SLkp interface will
  read charcters using the SLkp_getkey function.

  In addition to these basic functions, there are also functions to
  ``unget'' keyboard characters, flush the input, detect pending-input
  with a timeout, etc. These functions are defined below.

  6.1.  Initializing the Keyboard Interface

  The function SLang_init_tty must be called to initialize the terminal
  for single character input. This puts the terminal in a mode usually
  referred to as ``raw'' mode.

  The prototype for the function is:

             int SLang_init_tty (int abort_char, int flow_ctrl, int opost);

  It takes three parameters that are used to specify how the terminal is
  to be initialized.

  The first parameter, abort_char, is used to specify the interrupt
  character (SIGINT). Under MSDOS, this value corresponds to the scan
  code of the character that will be used to generate the interrupt. For
  example, under MSDOS, 34 should be used to make Ctrl-G generate an
  interrupt signal since 34 is the scan code for G. On other systems,
  the value of abort_char will simply be the ascii value of the control
  character that will be used to generate the interrupt signal, e.g., 7
  for Ctrl-G. If -1 is passed, the interrupt character will not be
  changed.

  Pressing the interrupt character specified by the first argument will
  generate a signal (SIGINT) that may or not be caught by the
  application. It is up to the application to catch this signal. S-Lang
  provides the function Slang_set_abort_signal to make it easy to
  facilitate this task.

  The second parameter is used to specify whether or not flow control
  should be used. If this parameter is zero, flow control is enabled.
  If the value is positive, flow control will be disabled. Disabling
  flow control is necessary to pass certain characters to the
  application (e.g., Ctrl-S and Ctrl-Q). Otherwise, the value is
  negative and the flow control behavior will be inherited from the
  terminal. The latter interpretation was added to version 2.3.0 of the
  library; earlier versions disabled flow control for both positive and
  negative values of this parameter. For some systems such as MSDOS,
  this parameter is meaningless.

  The third parameter, opost, is used to turn output processing on or
  off. If opost is zero, output processing is not turned on otherwise,
  output processing is turned on.

  The SLang_init_tty function returns -1 upon failure. In addition,
  after it returns, the S-Lang global variable SLang_TT_Baud_Rate will
  be set to the baud rate of the terminal if this value can be
  determined.

  Example:

             if (-1 == SLang_init_tty (7, 0, 0))  /* For MSDOS, use 34 as scan code */
               {
                 fprintf (stderr, "Unable to initialize the terminal.\n");
                 exit (1);
               }
             SLang_set_abort_signal (NULL);

  Here the terminal is initialized such that flow control and output
  processing are turned off. In addition, the character Ctrl-G (-- For
  MSDOS systems, use the scan code 34 instead of 7 for Ctrl-G--) has
  been specified to be the interrupt character. The function
  SLang_set_abort_signal is used to install the default S-Lang interrupt
  signal handler.

  6.2.  Resetting the Keyboard Interface

  The function SLang_reset_tty must be called to reset the terminal to
  the state it was in before the call to SLang_init_tty. The prototype
  for this function is:

             void SLang_reset_tty (void);

  Usually this function is only called before the program exits. How-
  ever, if the program is suspended it should also be called just before
  suspension.

  6.3.  Initializing the SLkp Routines

  Extra initialization of the higher-level SLkp functions are required
  because they are layered on top of the lower level routines. Since the
  SLkp_getkey function is able to process function and arrow keys in a
  terminal independent manner, it is necessary to call the
  SLtt_get_terminfo function to get information about the escape
  character sequences that the terminal's function keys send. Once that
  information is available, the SLkp_init function can construct the
  proper keymaps to process the escape sequences.

  This part of the initialization process for an application using this
  interface will look something like:

             SLtt_get_terminfo ();
             if (-1 == SLkp_init ())
               {
                  SLang_doerror ("SLkp_init failed.");
                  exit (1);
               }
             if (-1 == SLang_init_tty (-1, 0, 1))
               {
                  SLang_doerror ("SLang_init_tty failed.");
                  exit (1);
               }

  It is important to check the return status of the SLkp_init function
  which can failed if it cannot allocate enough memory for the keymap.

  6.4.  Setting the Interrupt Handler

  The function SLang_set_abort_signal may be used to associate an
  interrupt handler with the interrupt character that was previously
  specified by the SLang_init_tty function call. The prototype for this
  function is:

             void SLang_set_abort_signal (void (*)(int));

  This function returns nothing and takes a single parameter which is a
  pointer to a function taking an integer value and returning void. If a
  NULL pointer is passed, the default S-Lang interrupt handler will be
  used. The S-Lang default interrupt handler under Unix looks like:

             static void default_sigint (int sig)
             {
               SLsignal_intr (SIGINT, default_sigint);
               SLKeyBoard_Quit = 1;
               if (SLang_Ignore_User_Abort == 0)
                 SLang_set_error (SL_UserBreak_Error);
             }

  It simply sets the global variable SLKeyBoard_Quit to one and if the
  variable SLang_Ignore_User_Abort is non-zero, the error state is set
  to indicate a user break condition. (The function SLsignal_intr is
  similar to the standard C signal function except that it will inter-
  rupt system calls. Some may not like this behavior and may wish to
  call this SLang_set_abort_signal with a different handler.)

  Although the function expressed above is specific to Unix, the
  analogous routines for other operating systems are equivalent in
  functionality even though the details of the implementation may vary
  drastically (e.g., under MSDOS, the hardware keyboard interrupt int 9h
  is hooked).

  6.5.  Reading Keyboard Input with SLang_getkey

  After initializing the keyboard via SLang_init_tty, the S-Lang
  function SLang_getkey may be used to read characters from the terminal
  interface. In addition, the function SLang_input_pending may be used
  to determine whether or not keyboard input is available to be read.

  These functions have prototypes:

             unsigned int SLang_getkey (void);
             int SLang_input_pending (int tsecs);

  The SLang_getkey function returns a single character from the termi-
  nal. Upon failure, it returns 0xFFFF. If the interrupt character spec-
  ified by the SLang_init_tty function is pressed while this function is
  called, the function will return the value of the interrupt character
  and set the S-Lang global variable SLKeyBoard_Quit to a non-zero
  value. In addition, if the default S-Lang interrupt handler has been
  specified by a NULL argument to the SLang_set_abort_signal function,
  the error state of the library will be set to SL_UserBreak_Error
  unless the variable SLang_Ignore_User_Abort is non-zero.

  The SLang_getkey function waits until input is available to be read.
  The SLang_input_pending function may be used to determine whether or
  not input is ready. It takes a single parameter that indicates the
  amount of time to wait for input before returning with information
  regarding the availability of input. This parameter has units of one
  tenth (1/10) of a second, i.e., to wait one second, the value of the
  parameter should be 10. Passing a value of zero causes the function to
  return right away. SLang_input_pending returns a positive integer if
  input is available or zero if input is not available. It will return
  -1 if an error occurs.

  Here is a simple example that reads keys from the terminal until one
  presses Ctrl-G or until 5 seconds have gone by with no input:

             #include <stdio.h>
             #include <slang.h>
             int main ()
             {
                int abort_char = 7;  /* For MSDOS, use 34 as scan code */
                unsigned int ch;

                if (-1 == SLang_init_tty (abort_char, 0, 1))
                  {
                     fprintf (stderr, "Unable to initialize the terminal.\n");
                     exit (-1);
                  }
                SLang_set_abort_signal (NULL);
                while (1)
                  {
                     fputs ("\nPress any key.  To quit, press Ctrl-G: ", stdout);
                     fflush (stdout);
                     if (SLang_input_pending (50) == 0)  /* 50/10 seconds */
                       {
                          fputs ("Waited too long! Bye\n", stdout);
                          break;
                       }

                     ch = SLang_getkey ();
                     if (SLang_get_error () == SL_UserBreak_Error)
                       {
                          fputs ("Ctrl-G pressed!  Bye\n", stdout);
                          break;
                       }
                     putc ((int) ch, stdout);
                  }
                SLang_reset_tty ();
                return 0;
             }

  6.6.  Reading Keyboard Input with SLkp_getkey

  Unlike the low-level function SLang_getkey, the SLkp_getkey function
  can read a multi-character sequence associated with function keys. The
  SLkp_getkey function uses SLang_getkey and S-Lang's keymap facility to
  process escape sequences. It returns a single integer which describes
  the key that was pressed:

             int SLkp_getkey (void);

  That is, the SLkp_getkey function simple provides a mapping between
  keys and integers. In this context the integers are called keysyms.

  For single character input such as generated by the a key on the
  keyboard, the function returns the character that was generated, e.g.,
  'a'. For single characters, SLkp_getkey will always return an keysym
  whose value ranges from 0 to 256. For keys that generate multiple
  character sequences, e.g., a function or arrow key, the function
  returns an keysym whose value is greater that 256. The actual values
  of these keysyms are represented as macros defined in the slang.h
  include file. For example, the up arrow key corresponds to the keysym
  whose value is SL_KEY_UP.

  Since it is possible for the user to enter a character sequence that
  does not correspond to any key. If this happens, the special keysym
  SL_KEY_ERR will be returned.

  Here is an example of how SLkp_getkey may be used by a file viewer:

             switch (SLkp_getkey ())
               {
                  case ' ':
                  case SL_KEY_NPAGE:
                     next_page ();
                     break;
                  case 'b':
                  case SL_KEY_PPAGE:
                     previous_page ();
                     break;
                  case '\r':
                  case SL_KEY_DOWN:
                     next_line ();
                     break;
                      .
                      .
                  case SL_KEY_ERR:
                  default:
                     SLtt_beep ();
               }

  Unlike its lower-level counterpart, SLang_getkey, there do not yet
  exist any functions in the library that are capable of ``ungetting''
  keysyms. In particular, the SLang_ungetkey function will not work.

  6.7.  Buffering Input

  S-Lang has several functions pushing characters back onto the input
  stream to be read again later by SLang_getkey. It should be noted that
  none of the above functions are designed to push back keysyms read by
  the SLkp_getkey function. These functions are declared as follows:

             void SLang_ungetkey (unsigned char ch);
             void SLang_ungetkey_string (unsigned char *buf, int buflen);
             void SLang_buffer_keystring (unsigned char *buf, int buflen);

  SLang_ungetkey is the most simple of the three functions. It takes a
  single character a pushes it back on to the input stream. The next
  call to SLang_getkey will return this character. This function may be
  used to peek at the character to be read by first reading it and then
  putting it back.

  SLang_ungetkey_string has the same function as SLang_ungetkey except
  that it is able to push more than one character back onto the input
  stream. Since this function can push back null (ascii 0) characters,
  the number of characters to push is required as one of the parameters.

  The last of these three functions, SLang_buffer_keystring can handle
  more than one charater but unlike the other two, it places the
  characters at the end of the keyboard buffer instead of at the
  beginning.

  Note that the use of each of these three functions will cause
  SLang_input_pending to return right away with a non-zero value.

  Finally, the S-Lang keyboard interface includes the function
  SLang_flush_input with prototype

             void SLang_flush_input (void);

  It may be used to discard all input.

  Here is a simple example that looks to see what the next key to be
  read is if one is available:

             int peek_key ()
             {
                int ch;
                if (SLang_input_pending (0) == 0) return -1;
                ch = SLang_getkey ();
                SLang_ungetkey (ch);
                return ch;
             }

  6.8.  Global Variables

  Although the following S-Lang global variables have already been
  mentioned earlier, they are gathered together here for completeness.

  int SLang_Ignore_User_Abort; If non-zero, pressing the interrupt
  character will not result in the libraries error state set to
  SL_UserBreak_Error.

  volatile int SLKeyBoard_Quit; This variable is set to a non-zero value
  when the interrupt character is pressed. If the interrupt character is
  pressed when SLang_getkey is called, the interrupt character will be
  returned from SLang_getkey.

  int SLang_TT_Baud_Rate; On systems which support it, this variable is
  set to the value of the terminal's baud rate after the call to
  SLang_init_tty.

  7.  Readline Interface

  The S-Lang library includes simple but capable readline functionality
  in its SLrline layer. The SLrline routines provide a simple mechanism
  for an application to get prompted input from a user with command line
  editing, completions, and history recall.

  The use of the SLrline routines will be illustrated with a few simple
  examples. All of the examples given in this section may be found in
  the file demo/rline.c in the S-Lang source code distribution. For
  clarity, the code shown below omits most error checking.

  7.1.  Introduction

  The first example simply reads input from the user until the user
  enters quit:

          SLrline_Type *rl;
          SLang_init_tty (-1, 0, 1);
          rl = SLrline_open (80, SL_RLINE_BLINK_MATCH);
          while (1)
            {
              char *line;
              unsigned int len;

              line = SLrline_read_line (rl, "prompt>", &len);
              if (line == NULL) break;
              if (0 == strcmp (line, "quit"))
                {
                   SLfree (line);
                   break;
                }
              (void) fprintf (stdout, "\nRead %d bytes: %s\n", strlen(line), line);
              SLfree (line);
            }
          SLrline_close (rl);
          SLang_reset_tty ();

  In this example, the SLtt interface functions SLang_init_tty and
  SLang_reset_tty functions have been used to open and close the termi-
  nal for reading input. By default, the SLrline functions use the
  SLang_getkey function to read characters and assume that the terminal
  has been properly initialized before use.

  The SLrline_open function was used to create an instance of an
  SLrline_Type object. The function takes two arguments: and edit window
  display width (80 above), and a set of flags. In this case, the
  SL_RLINE_BLINK_MATCH flags has been used to turn on parenthesis
  blinking. Once finished, the SLrline_Type object must be freed using
  the SLrline_close function.

  The actual reading of the line occurs in the SLrline_read_line
  function, which takes an SLrline_Type instance and a string
  representing the prompt to be used. The line itself is returned as a
  malloced char * and must be freed using the SLfree function after
  used. The length (in bytes) of the line is returned via the parameter
  list.

  If an end-of-file character (^D on Unix) was entered at the beginning
  of a line, the SLrline_read_line function will return NULL. However,
  it also return NULL if an error of some sort was encountered. The only
  way to tell the difference between these two conditions is to call
  SLang_get_error.

  The above code fragment did not provide for any sort of SIGINT
  handling. Without such a provision, pressing ^C at the prompt could be
  enough to kill the application.  This is especially undesirable if one
  wants to press ^C to abort the call to SLrline_read_line. The function
  example_2 in demo/rline.c shows code to handle this situation as well
  as distinguish between EOF and other errors.

  7.2.  Interpreter Interface

  SLrline features such as command-line completion, vi-emulation, and so
  on are implemented through callbacks or hooks from the SLrline
  functions to the S-Lang interpreter. Hence, this functionality is only
  available to applications that make use of the interpreter.

  TBD...

  8.  Screen Management

  The S-Lang library provides two interfaces to terminal independent
  routines for manipulating the display on a terminal. The highest level
  interface, known as the SLsmg interface is discussed in this section.
  It provides high level screen management functions for manipulating
  the display in an optimal manner and is similar in spirit to the
  curses library. The lowest level interface, or the SLtt interface, is
  used by the SLsmg routines to actually perform the task of writing to
  the display. This interface is discussed in another section. Like the
  keyboard routines, the SLsmg routines are platform independent and
  work the same on MSDOS, OS/2, Unix, and VMS.

  The screen management, or SLsmg, routines are initialized by function
  SLsmg_init_smg. Once initialized, the application uses various SLsmg
  functions to write to a virtual display. This does not cause the
  physical terminal display to be updated immediately.  The physical
  display is updated to look like the virtual display only after a call
  to the function SLsmg_refresh. Before exiting, the application using
  these routines is required to call SLsmg_reset_smg to reset the
  display system.

  The following subsections explore S-Lang's screen management system in
  greater detail.

  8.1.  Initialization

  The function SLsmg_init_smg must be called before any other SLsmg
  function can be used. It has the simple prototype:

             int SLsmg_init_smg (void);

  It returns zero if successful or -1 if it cannot allocate space for
  the virtual display.

  For this routine to properly initialize the virtual display, the
  capabilities of the terminal must be known as well as the size of the
  physical display. For these reasons, the lower level SLtt routines
  come into play. In particular, before the first call to
  SLsmg_init_smg, the application is required to call the function
  SLtt_get_terminfo before calling SLsmg_init_smg.

  The SLtt_get_terminfo function sets the global variables
  SLtt_Screen_Rows and SLtt_Screen_Cols to the values appropriate for
  the terminal. It does this by calling the SLtt_get_screen_size
  function to query the terminal driver for the appropriate values for
  these variables. From this point on, it is up to the application to
  maintain the correct values for these variables by calling the
  SLtt_get_screen_size function whenever the display size changes, e.g.,
  in response to a SIGWINCH signal. Finally, if the application is going
  to read characters from the keyboard, it is also a good idea to
  initialize the keyboard routines at this point as well.

  8.2.  Resetting SLsmg

  Before the program exits or suspends, the function SLsmg_reset_smg
  should be called to shutdown the display system. This function has the
  prototype

             void SLsmg_reset_smg (void);

  This will deallocate any memory allocated for the virtual screen and
  reset the terminal's display.

  Basically, a program that uses the SLsmg screen management functions
  and S-Lang's keyboard interface will look something like:

             #include <slang.h>
             int main ()
             {
                SLtt_get_terminfo ();
                SLang_init_tty (-1, 0, 0);
                SLsmg_init_smg ();

                /* do stuff .... */

                SLsmg_reset_smg ();
                SLang_reset_tty ();
                return 0;
             }

  If this program is compiled and run, all it will do is clear the
  screen and position the cursor at the bottom of the display. In the
  following sections, other SLsmg functions will be introduced which may
  be used to make this simple program do much more.

  8.3.  Handling Screen Resize Events

  The function SLsmg_reinit_smg is designed to be used in conjunction
  with resize events.

  Under Unix-like operating systems, when the size of the display
  changes, the application will be sent a SIGWINCH signal. To properly
  handle this signal, the SLsmg routines must be reinitialized to use
  the new display size. This may be accomplished by calling
  SLtt_get_screen_size to get the new size, followed by SLsmg_reinit_smg
  to reinitialize the SLsmg interface to use the new size. Keep in mind
  that these routines should not be called from within the signal
  handler. The following code illustrates the main ideas involved in
  handling such events:

            static volatile int Screen_Size_Changed;
            static sigwinch_handler (int sig)
            {
               Screen_Size_Changed = 1;
               SLsignal (SIGWINCH, sigwinch_handler);
            }

            int main (int argc, char **argv)
            {
               SLsignal (SIGWINCH, sigwinch_handler);
               SLsmg_init_smg ();
                 .
                 .
               /* Now enter main loop */
               while (not_done)
                 {
                    if (Screen_Size_Changed)
                      {
                         SLtt_get_screen_size ();
                         SLsmg_reinit_smg ();
                         redraw_display ();
                      }
                    .
                    .
                 }
              return 0;
            }

  8.4.  SLsmg Functions

  In the previous sections, functions for initializing and shutting down
  the SLsmg routines were discussed. In this section, the rest of the
  SLsmg functions are presented. These functions act only on the virtual
  display. The physical display is updated when the SLsmg_refresh
  function is called and not until that time.  This function has the
  simple prototype:

            void SLsmg_refresh (void);

  8.4.1.  Positioning the cursor

  The SLsmg_gotorc function is used to position the cursor at a given
  row and column. The prototype for this function is:

             void SLsmg_gotorc (int row, int col);

  The origin of the screen is at the top left corner and is given the
  coordinate (0, 0), i.e., the top row of the screen corresponds to row
  = 0 and the first column corresponds to col = 0. The last row of the
  screen is given by row = SLtt_Screen_Rows - 1.

  It is possible to change the origin of the coordinate system by using
  the function SLsmg_set_screen_start with prototype:

            void SLsmg_set_screen_start (int *r, int *c);

  This function takes pointers to the new values of the first row and
  first column. It returns the previous values by modifying the values
  of the integers at the addresses specified by the parameter list. A
  NULL pointer may be passed to indicate that the origin is to be set to
  its initial value of 0. For example,

             int r = 10;
             SLsmg_set_screen_start (&r, NULL);

  sets the origin to (10, 0) and after the function returns, the vari-
  able r will have the value of the previous row origin.

  8.4.2.  Writing to the Display

  SLsmg has several routines for outputting text to the virtual display.
  The following points should be understood:

  o  The text is output at the position of the cursor of the virtual
     display and the cursor is advanced to the position that corresponds
     to the end of the text.

  o  Text does not wrap at the boundary of the display--- it is
     trucated. This behavior seems to be more useful in practice since
     most programs that would use screen management tend to be line
     oriented.

  o  Control characters are displayed in a two character sequence
     representation with ^ as the first character. That is, Ctrl-X is
     output as ^X.

  o  The behavior of the newline character depends upon the value of the
     SLsmg_Newline_Behavior variable. It may be set to any one of the
     following values:

     SLSMG_NEWLINE_IGNORED : If a newline character is encountered when
     writing a string to the virtual display, the characters in the
     string following the newline character will not be written. In
     other words, the newline character will act like a string
     termination character. This is the default setting for the
     SLsmg_Newline_Behavior.

     SLSMG_NEWLINE_MOVES : If a newline character is when writing to the
     virtual display, the following characters will be written to the
     beginning of the next row.

     SLSMG_NEWLINE_SCROLLS : When set to this value and a newline
     character is output at the bottom of the virtual display, the
     display will scroll up. Otherwise the behavior will be the same as
     that of SLSMG_NEWLINE_MOVES.

     SLSMG_NEWLINE_PRINTABLE : When set to this value, a newline
     character will be printed as the two characters sequence ^J.

  Although the some of the above items might appear to be too
  restrictive, in practice this is not seem to be the case. In fact, the
  design of the output routines was influenced by their actual use and
  modified to simplify the code of the application utilizing them.

     void SLsmg_write_char (char ch);
        Write a single character to the virtual display.

     void SLsmg_write_nchars (char *str, int len);
        Write len characters pointed to by str to the virtual display.

     void SLsmg_write_string (char *str);
        Write the null terminated string given by pointer str to the
        virtual display. This function is a wrapper around
        SLsmg_write_nchars.

     void SLsmg_write_nstring (char *str, int n);
        The purpose of this function is to write a null terminated
        string to a field that is at most n cells wide. Each double-wide
        character in the string will use two cells. If the string is not
        big enough to fill the n cells, the rest of the cells will be
        filled with space characters. This function is a wrapper around
        SLsmg_write_wrapped_string.

     void SLsmg_write_wrapped_string(SLuchar_Type *str, int r, int c,
        unsigned int dr, unsigned int dc, int fill)
        The purpose of this function is to write a string str to a box
        defined by rows and columns satisfying r<=row<r+dc and
        c<=column<c+dc. The string will be wrapped at the column
        boundaries of the box and truncated if its size exceeds to size
        of the box. If the total size of the string is less than that of
        the box, and the fill parameter is non-zero, then the rest of
        the cells in the box will be filled with space characters.
        Currently the wrapping algorithm is very simple and knows
        nothing about word boundaries.

     void SLsmg_printf (char *fmt, ...);
        This function is similar to printf except that it writes to the
        SLsmg virtual display.

     void SLsmg_vprintf (char *, va_list);
        Like SLsmg_printf but uses a variable argument list.

  8.4.3.  Erasing the Display

  The following functions may be used to fill portions of the display
  with blank characters. The attributes of blank character are the
  current attributes. (See below for a discussion of character
  attributes)

     void SLsmg_erase_eol (void);
        Erase line from current position to the end of the line.

     void SLsmg_erase_eos (void);
        Erase from the current position to the end of the screen.

     void SLsmg_cls (void);
        Clear the entire virtual display.

  8.4.4.  Setting Character Attributes

  Character attributes define the visual characteristics the character
  possesses when it is displayed. Visual characteristics include the
  foreground and background colors as well as other attributes such as
  blinking, bold, and so on. Since SLsmg takes a different approach to
  this problem than other screen management libraries an explanation of
  this approach is given here. This approach has been motivated by
  experience with programs that require some sort of screen management.

  Most programs that use SLsmg are composed of specific textual objects
  or objects made up of line drawing characters. For example, consider
  an application with a menu bar with drop down menus. The menus might
  be enclosed by some sort of frame or perhaps a shadow. The basic idea
  is to associate an integer to each of the objects (e.g., menu bar,
  shadow, current menu item, etc.) and create a mapping from the integer
  to the set of attributes. In the terminology of SLsmg, the integer is
  simply called an object.

  For example, the menu bar might be associated with the object 1, the
  drop down menu could be object 2, the shadow could be object 3, and so
  on.

  The range of values for the object integer is restricted from 0 up to
  and including 255 on all systems except MSDOS where the maximum
  allowed integer is 15 (-- This difference is due to memory constraints
  imposed by MSDOS. This restriction might be removed in a future
  version of the library.--) . The object numbered zero should not be
  regarding as an object at all. Rather it should be regarded as all
  other objects that have not explicitly been given an object number.
  SLsmg, or more precisely SLtt, refers to the attributes of this
  special object as the default or normal attributes.

  The SLsmg routines know nothing about the mapping of the color to the
  attributes associated with the color. The actual mapping takes place
  at a lower level in the SLtt routines. Hence, to map an object to the
  actual set of attributes requires a call to any of the following SLtt
  routines:

            void SLtt_set_color (int obj, char *name, char *fg, char *bg);
            void SLtt_set_color_object (int obj, SLtt_Char_Type attr);
            void SLtt_set_mono (int obj, char *, SLtt_Char_Type attr);

  Only the first of these routines will be discussed briefly here. The
  latter two functions allow more fine control over the object to
  attribute mapping (such as assigning a ``blink'' attribute to the
  object). For a more full explanation on all of these routines see the
  section about the SLtt interface.

  The SLtt_set_color function takes four parameters. The first
  parameter, obj, is simply the integer of the object for which
  attributes are to be assigned. The second parameter is currently
  unused by these routines. The third and forth parameters, fg and bg,
  are the names of the foreground and background color to be used
  associated with the object. The strings that one can use for the third
  and fourth parameters can be any one of the 16 colors:

            "black"                "gray"
            "red"                  "brightred"
            "green"                "brightgreen"
            "brown"                "yellow"
            "blue"                 "brightblue"
            "magenta"              "brightmagenta"
            "cyan"                 "brightcyan"
            "lightgray"            "white"

  The value of the foreground parameter fg can be anyone of these six-
  teen colors. However, on most terminals, the background color will can
  only be one of the colors listed in the first column (-- This is also
  true on the Linux console. However, it need not be the case and hope-
  fully the designers of Linux will someday remove this restriction.--)
  .

  Of course not all terminals are color terminals. If the S-Lang global
  variable SLtt_Use_Ansi_Colors is non-zero, the terminal is assumed to
  be a color terminal. The SLtt_get_terminfo will try to determine
  whether or not the terminal supports colors and set this variable
  accordingly. It does this by looking for the capability in the
  terminfo/termcap database. Unfortunately many Unix databases lack this
  information and so the SLtt_get_terminfo routine will check whether or
  not the environment variable COLORTERM exists. If it exists, the
  terminal will be assumed to support ANSI colors and
  SLtt_Use_Ansi_Colors will be set to one.  Nevertheless, the
  application should provide some other mechanism to set this variable,
  e.g., via a command line parameter.

  When the SLtt_Use_Ansi_Colors variable is zero, all objects with
  numbers greater than one will be displayed in inverse video (-- This
  behavior can be modified by using the SLtt_set_mono function call.--)
  .

  With this background, the SLsmg functions for setting the character
  attributes can now be defined. These functions simply set the object
  attributes that are to be assigned to subsequent characters written to
  the virtual display. For this reason, the new attribute is called the
  current attribute.

     void SLsmg_set_color (int obj);
        Set the current attribute to those of object obj.

     void SLsmg_normal_video (void);
        This function is equivalent to SLsmg_set_color (0).

     void SLsmg_reverse_video (void);
        This function is equivalent to SLsmg_set_color (1). On
        monochrome terminals, it is equivalent to setting the subsequent
        character attributes to inverse video.

  Unfortunately there does not seem to be a standard way for the
  application or, in particular, the library to determine which color
  will be used by the terminal for the default background. Such
  information would be useful in initializing the foreground and
  background colors associated with the default color object (0). For
  this reason, it is up to the application to provide some means for the
  user to indicate what these colors are for the particular terminal
  setup. To facilitate this, the SLtt_get_terminfo function checks for
  the existence of the COLORFGBG environment variable. If this variable
  exists, its value will be used to initialize the colors associated
  with the default color object. Specifically, the value is assumed to
  consist of a foreground color name and a background color name
  separated by a semicolon. For example, if the value of COLORFGBG is
  lightgray;blue, the default color object will be initialized to
  represent a lightgray foreground upon a blue background.

  8.4.5.  Lines and Alternate Character Sets

  The S-Lang screen management library also includes routines for
  turning on and turning off alternate character sets. This is
  especially useful for drawing horizontal and vertical lines.

     void SLsmg_set_char_set (int flag);
        If flag is non-zero, subsequent write functions will use
        characters from the alternate character set. If flag is zero,
        the default, or, ordinary character set will be used.

     void SLsmg_draw_hline (int len);
        Draw a horizontal line from the current position to the column
        that is len characters to the right.

     void SLsmg_draw_vline (int len);
        Draw a horizontal line from the current position to the row that
        is len rows below.

     void SLsmg_draw_box (int r, int c, int dr, int dc);
        Draw a box whose upper right corner is at row r and column c.
        The box spans dr rows and dc columns. The current position will
        be left at row r and column c.

  8.4.6.  Miscellaneous Functions

     void SLsmg_touch_lines (int r, int n);
        Mark screen rows numbered r, r + 1, ... r + (n - 1) as modified.
        When SLsmg_refresh is called, these rows will be completely
        redrawn.

     int SLsmg_char_at(SLsmg_Char_Type *ch);
        Returns the character and its attributes at the current
        position.  The SLsmg_Char_Type object is a structure
        representing the character cell:

              #define SLSMG_MAX_CHARS_PER_CELL 5
              typedef struct
               {
                  unsigned int nchars;
                  SLwchar_Type wchars[SLSMG_MAX_CHARS_PER_CELL];
                  SLsmg_Color_Type color;
               }
               SLsmg_Char_Type;

     Normally the value of the nchars field will be 1 to indicate that
     the character contains precisely one character whose value is given
     by the zeroth element of the wchars array of the structure.  The
     value of nchars will be greater than one if the character cell also
     contains so-called Unicode combining characters. The combining
     characters are given by the elements 1 through nchars-1 of the
     wchars array. If nchars is 0, then the character cell represents
     the second half of a double-wide character.

     The color field repesents both the color of the character cell and
     the alternate character set setting of the cell. This value may be
     bitwise-anded with SLSMG_COLOR_MASK to obtain the cell's color, and
     bitwise-anded with SLSMG_ACS_MASK to determine whether or not the
     alternate-character set setting is in effect for the cell (zero or
     non-zero).

  8.5.  Variables

  The following S-Lang global variables are used by the SLsmg interface.
  Some of these have been previously discussed.

  int SLtt_Screen_Rows; int SLtt_Screen_Cols; The number of rows and
  columns of the physical display. If either of these numbers changes,
  the functions SLsmg_reset_smg and SLsmg_init_smg should be called
  again so that the SLsmg routines can re-adjust to the new size.

  int SLsmg_Tab_Width; Set this variable to the tab width that will be
  used when expanding tab characters. The default is 8.

  int SLsmg_Display_Eight_Bit; This variable determines how characters
  with the high bit set are to be output. Specifically, a character with
  the high bit set with a value greater than or equal to this value is
  output as is; otherwise, it will be output in a 7-bit representation.
  The default value for this variable is 128 for MSDOS and 160 for other
  systems (ISO-Latin).  In UTF-8 mode, the value of this variable is 0.

  int SLtt_Use_Ansi_Colors; If this value is non-zero, the terminal is
  assumed to support ANSI colors otherwise it is assumed to be
  monochrome. The default is 0.

  int SLtt_Term_Cannot_Scroll; If this value is zero, the SLsmg will
  attempt to scroll the physical display to optimize the update. If it
  is non-zero, the screen management routines will not perform this
  optimization. For some applications, this variable should be set to
  zero. The default value is set by the SLtt_get_terminfo function.

  8.6.  Hints for using SLsmg

  This section discusses some general design issues that one must face
  when writing an application that requires some sort of screen
  management.

  9.  Signal Functions

  Almost all non-trivial programs must worry about signals. This is
  especially true for programs that use the S-Lang terminal input/output
  and screen management routines. Unfortunately, there is no fixed way
  to handle signals; otherwise, the Unix kernel would take care of all
  issues regarding signals and the application programmer would never
  have to worry about them. For this reason, none of the routines in the
  S-Lang library catch signals; however, some of the routines block the
  delivery of signals during crucial moments. It is up to the
  application programmer to install handlers for the various signals of
  interest.

  If the application makes use of the interpreter, then a signal handler
  for SIGINT should be installed to allow the user to break out of the
  interpreter via, e.g., Ctrl-C. In order for this to work, the signal
  handler should call SLang_set_error to generate a SL_UserBreak_Error
  exception, i.e.,

           void sigint_handler (int sig)
           {
              if (SLang_Ignore_User_Abort == 0)
                SLang_set_error (SL_UserBreak_Error);
           }

  Applications that use the tty getkey routines or the screen management
  routines must worry about signals such as:

            SIGINT                interrupt
            SIGTSTP               stop
            SIGQUIT               quit
            SIGTTOU               background write
            SIGTTIN               background read
            SIGWINCH              window resize

  It is important that handlers be established for these signals while
  the either the SLsmg routines or the getkey routines are initialized.
  The SLang_init_tty, SLang_reset_tty, SLsmg_init_smg, and
  SLsmg_reset_smg functions block these signals from occurring while
  they are being called.

  Since a signal can be delivered at any time, it is important for the
  signal handler to call only functions that can be called from a signal
  handler. This usually means that such function must be re-entrant. In
  particular, the SLsmg routines are not re-entrant; hence, they should
  not be called when a signal is being processed unless the application
  can ensure that the signal was not delivered while an SLsmg function
  was called. This statement applies to many other functions such as
  malloc, or, more generally, any function that calls malloc. The upshot
  is that the signal handler should not attempt to do too much except
  set a global variable for the application to look at while not in a
  signal handler.

  The S-Lang library provides two functions for blocking and unblocking
  the above signals:

           int SLsig_block_signals (void);
           int SLsig_unblock_signals (void);

  It should be noted that for every call to SLsig_block_signals, a cor-
  responding call should be made to SLsig_unblock_signals, e.g.,

           void update_screen ()
           {
              SLsig_block_signals ();

              /* Call SLsmg functions */
                  .
                  .
              SLsig_unblock_signals ();
           }

  See demo/pager.c for examples.

  10.  Searching Functions

  The S-Lang library incorporates two types of searches: Regular
  expression pattern matching and ordinary searching.

  10.1.  Simple Searches

  S-Lang's SLsearch interface functions a convenient interface to the
  famous Boyer-Moore fast searching algrothim. The searches can go in
  either a forward or backward direction and and may be performed with
  or without regard to case. Moreover, UTF-8 encoded strings are fully
  supported by the interface.

  10.2.  Regular Expressions

  !!! No documentation available yet !!!

  A.  S-Lang 2 API NEWS and UPGRADE information

  The S-Lang API underwent a number of changes for version 2. In
  particular, the following interfaces have been affected:

           SLsmg
           SLregexp
           SLsearch
           SLrline
           SLprep
           slang interpreter modules

  Detailed information about these changes is given below. Other changes
  include:

  o  UTF-8 encoded strings are now supported at both the C library level
     and the interpreter.

  o  Error handling by the interpreter has been rewritten to support
     try/catch style exception. Applications may also define
     application-specific error codes.

  o  The library may be compiled with large-file-support.

     See the relevant chapters in this manual for more information.

  A.1.  SLang_Error

  The SLang_Error variable is nolonger part of the API. Change code such
  as

             SLang_Error = foo;
             if (SLang_Error == bar) ...

  to

             SLang_set_error (foo);
             if (bar == SLang_get_error ()) ...

  A.2.  SLsmg/SLtt Functions

  The changes to these functions were dictated by the new UTF-8 support.
  For the most part, the changes should be transparent but some
  functions and variables have been changed.

  o  SLtt_Use_Blink_For_ACS is nolonger supported, nor necessary I think
     only DOSEMU uses this.

  o  Prototypes for SLsmg_draw_object and SLsmg_write_char were changed
     to use wide characters (SLwchar_Type).

  o  SLsmg_Char_Type was changed from an unsigned short to a structure.
     This change was necessary in order to support combining characters
     and double width unicode characters. This change may affect the use
     of the following functions:

            SLsmg_char_at
            SLsmg_read_raw
            SLsmg_write_raw
            SLsmg_write_color_chars

  o  The SLSMG_BUILD_CHAR macro has been removed.  The
     SLSMG_EXTRACT_CHAR macro will continue to work as long as combining
     characters are not present.

  o  The prototype for SLsmg_char_at was changed to

            int SLsmg_char_at (SLsmg_Char_Type *);

  A.3.  SLsearch Functions

  SLsearch_Type is now an opaque type. Code such as

             SLsearch_Type st;
             SLsearch_init (string, 1, 0, &st);
                .
                .
             s = SLsearch (buf, bufmax, &st);

  which searches forward in buf for string must be changed to

             SLsearch_Type *st = SLsearch_open (string, SLSEARCH_CASELESS);
             if (st == NULL)
               return;
                .
                .
             s = SLsearch_forward (st, buf, bufmax);
                .
                .
             SLsearch_close (st);

  A.4.  Regular Expression Functions

  The slang v1 regular expression API has been redesigned in order to
  facilitate the incorporation of third party regular expression
  engines.

  New functions include:

            SLregexp_compile
            SLregexp_free
            SLregexp_match
            SLregexp_nth_match
            SLregexp_get_hints

  The plan is to migrate to the use of the PCRE regular expressions for
  version 2.2. As such, you may find it convenient to adopt the PCRE
  library now instead of updating to the changed S-Lang API.

  A.5.  Readline Functions

  The readline interface has changed in order to make it easier to use.
  Using it now is as simple as:

             SLrline_Type *rli;
             rli = SLrline_open (SLtt_Screen_Cols, flags);
             buf = SLrline_read_line (rli, prompt, &len);
             /* Use buf */
                .
                .
             SLfree (buf);
             SLrline_close (rli);

  See how it is used in slsh/readline.c.

  A.6.  Preprocessor Interface

  SLPreprocess_Type was renamed to SLprep_Type and made opaque.  New
  functions include:

             SLprep_new
             SLprep_delete
             SLprep_set_flags
             SLprep_set_comment
             SLprep_set_prefix
             SLprep_set_exists_hook
             SLprep_set_eval_hook

  If you currently use:

             SLPreprocess_Type pt;
             SLprep_open_prep (&pt);
                .
                .
             SLprep_close_prep (&pt);

  Then change it to:

             SLprep_Type *pt;
             pt = SLprep_new ();
                .
                .
             SLprep_delete (pt);

  A.7.  Functions dealing with the interpreter C API

  o  SLang_pop_double has been changed to be more like the other
     SLang_pop_* functions. Now, it may be used as:

              double x;
              if (-1 == SLang_pop_double (&x))
                .
                .

  o  All the functions that previously took an "unsigned char" to
     specify a slang data type have changed to require an SLtype.
     Previously, SLtype was typedefed to be an unsigned char, but now it
     is an int.

  o  The SLang_Class_Type object is now an opaque type. If you were
     previously accessing its fields directly, then you will have to
     change the code to use one of the accessor functions.

  A.8.  Modules

  o  In order to support the loading of a module into multiple
     namespaces, a module's init function may be called more than once.
     See modules/README for more information.

  o  The init_<module>_module function is no longer supported because it
     did not support namespaces. Use the init_<module>_module_ns
     function instead.

  B.  Copyright

  The S-Lang library is distributed under the terms of the GNU General
  Public License.

  B.1.  The GNU Public License

                          GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
                              Version 2, June 1991

        Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
                              59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
        Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
        of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

                                   Preamble

  The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom
  to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is
  intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free soft-
  ware--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This Gen-
  eral Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's
  software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it.
  (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU
  Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your pro-
  grams, too.

  When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
  price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
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  To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
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  We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
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  Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
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  Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
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  The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
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                           GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
          TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

  0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a
  notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
  under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
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  either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
  language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
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  Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
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  running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
  is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program
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  that is true depends on what the Program does.

  1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source
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  and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to
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  You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
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  2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of
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  such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above,
  provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

           a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
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           b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
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           c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
           when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
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  These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifi-
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  the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License,
  whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and
  thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

  Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
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  In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
  with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
  a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
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  3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
  under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
  Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

           a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
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  The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
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  If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
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  4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
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  5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
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  Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
  all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
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  If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
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  to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
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  This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
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  may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
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                                   NO WARRANTY

         11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
       FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.  EXCEPT WHEN
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       WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
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                            END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

  How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

  If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
  possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
  free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these
  terms.

  To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to
  attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
  convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
  the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

           <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
           Copyright (C) 19yy  <name of author>

           This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
           it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
           the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
           (at your option) any later version.

           This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
           but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
           MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
           GNU General Public License for more details.

           You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
           along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
           Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

  Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper
  mail.

  If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
  when it starts in an interactive mode:

           Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author
           Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
           This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
           under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

  The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appro-
  priate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands
  you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they
  could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program.

  You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or
  your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program,
  if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:

         Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
         `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.

         <signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
         Ty Coon, President of Vice

  This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program
  into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library,
  you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applica-
  tions with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU
  Library General Public License instead of this License.

  B.2.  The Unicode Inc. Copyright

  This software makes use of the Unicode tables published by Unicode,
  Inc under the following terms:

            COPYRIGHT AND PERMISSION NOTICE

            Copyright (c) 1991-2009 Unicode, Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed
            under the Terms of Use in http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html.

            Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
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