On 2 Jun 2001, at 2:19, Helen Borrie wrote:

> >2. gpre generates API function calls that cannot be found in the
> >documentation. Examples: isc_compile_request2
> > isc_start_and_send
> > isc_embed_dsql_* (about six such related functions)
>
> How would you feel about documenting them "to the best of your
> knowledge"? I guess that's the only way we will get doc for them.
> I'd be quite intrigued to include a topic in the Developer's Handbook
> entitled "The Hidden API".

Usually when a function is not documented, it's because it's intended
life span is fairly short. We don't want to spend a lot of time,
investigating and documenting functions, that could potentially
disappear in the near future. If gpre is the only one that uses a
function, that's okay, because gpre could easily be fixed to replace
that function. The C code produced by gpre is transitory anyway,
and the first thing you do building an app, for a new version is a
clean build.

The forerunner of the undocumented API, was when people wrote
programs that called DOS code directly, rather then going through the
proper documented interupt, this was even done by programmers who
should have known better, and half the software on the market when
DOS 4.0 came out, didn't work with it, because it was using
undocumented calls in DOS 3.3.

Paul
Paul Schmidt,
Tricat Technologies
Email: paul@...
Website: www.tricattechnologies.com