# Functions

2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Function index
Macro index
NSBundle macros

key
comment

This function (macro) is used to get the localized translation of the string `key`. `key` is looked up in the `Localizable.strings` file for the current language. The current language is determined by the available languages in which the application is translated, and by using the `NSLanguages` user defaults (which should contain an array of the languages preferred by the user, in order of preference).

Technically, the function works by calling `localizedStringForKey:value:table:` on the main bundle, using `@""` as value, and `nil` as the table. The `comment` is ignored when the macro is expanded; but when we have tools which can generate the `Localizable.strings` files automatically from source code, the `comment` will be used by the tools and added as a comment before the string to translate. Upon finding something like

`NSLocalizedString (@"My useful string", @"My useful comment about the string");`

in the source code, the tools will generate a comment and the line

`" My useful string" = "My useful string";`

in the `Localizable.strings` file (the translator then can use this as a skeleton for the `Localizable.strings` for his/her own language, where she/he can replace the right hand side with the translation in her/his own language). The comment can help the translator to decide how to translate when it is not clear how to translate (because the original string is now out of context, and out of context might not be so clear what the string means). The comment is totally ignored by the library code.

If you don't have a comment (because the string is so self-explanatory that it doesn't need it), you can leave it blank, by using `@""` as a comment. If the string might be unclear out of context, it is recommended that you add a comment (even if it is unused for now).

key
tbl
comment
This function (macro) does the same as `NSLocalizedString`, but uses the table `table` rather than the default table. This means that the string to translate will be looked up in a different file than `Localizable.strings`. For example, if you pass `DatabaseErrors` as the `table`, the string will be looked up for translation in the file `DatabaseErrors.strings`. This allows you to have the same string translated in different ways, by having a different translation in different tables, and choosing between the different translation by choosing a different table.
key
tbl
bundle
comment
This function is the full-blown localization function (it is actually a macro). It looks up the string `key` for translation in the table `table` of the bundle `bundle` (please refer to the NSBundle documentation for more information on how this lookup is done). `comment` is a comment, which is ignored by the library (it is discarded when the macro is expanded) but which can be used by tools which parse the source code and generate strings table to provide a comment which the translator can use when translating the string.
NSDecimal macros

Give a precision of at least 38 decimal digits requires 128 bits.
NSException macros

condition
desc
args
Used in an ObjC method body.
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and args.
condition
desc
arg1
Used in an ObjC method body (obsolete... use NSAssert).
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1
condition
desc
arg1
arg2
Used in an ObjC method body (obsolete... use NSAssert).
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1, arg2
condition
desc
arg1
arg2
arg3
Used in an ObjC method body (obsolete... use NSAssert).
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1, arg2, arg3
condition
desc
arg1
arg2
arg3
arg4
Used in an ObjC method body (obsolete... use NSAssert).
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1, arg2, arg3, arg4
condition
desc
arg1
arg2
arg3
arg4
arg5
Used in an ObjC method body (obsolete... use NSAssert).
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1, arg2, arg3, arg4, arg5
condition
desc
args
Used in plain C code (not in an ObjC method body).
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc
condition
desc
arg1
Obsolete... use NSCAssert() .
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1
condition
desc
arg1
arg2
Obsolete... use NSCAssert() .
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1, arg2
condition
desc
arg1
arg2
arg3
Obsolete... use NSCAssert() .
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1, arg2, arg3
condition
desc
arg1
arg2
arg3
arg4
Obsolete... use NSCAssert() .
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1, arg2, arg3, arg4
condition
desc
arg1
arg2
arg3
arg4
arg5
Obsolete... use NSCAssert() .
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception using desc and arg1, arg2, arg3, arg4, arg5
condition
Used in plain C code (not in an ObjC method body).
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception saying that an invalid parameter was supplied to the method.
condition
Used in an ObjC method body.
See NSAssertionHandler for details.
When condition is false, raise an exception saying that an invalid parameter was supplied to the method.
NSInvocation macros

aClass
message
Creates and returns an autoreleased invocation containing a message to an instance of the class. The 'message' consists of selector and arguments like a standard ObjectiveC method call.
Before using the returned invocation, you need to set its target.
target
message
Creates and returns an autoreleased invocation containing a message to the target object. The 'message' consists of selector and arguments like a standard ObjectiveC method call.
NSObjCRuntime macros

Declare the foundation export macro as an alias to GS_EXPORT
Declare Apple availability macros for compatibility purposes as no-ops.
NSByteOrder functions

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NSDebug functions

active
This function activates or deactivates object allocation debugging.
Returns the previous state.
You should call this function to activate allocation debugging before using any of the other allocation debugging functions such as GSDebugAllocationList() or GSDebugAllocationTotal() .
Object allocation debugging should not affect performance too much, and is very useful as it allows you to monitor how many objects of each class your application has allocated.
c
DEPRECATED... use GSDebugAllocationRecordObjects instead.
c
o
Used internally by NSAllocateObject() ... you probably don't need this.
active
This function activates or deactivates byte counting for allocation.
Returns the previous state.
You may call this function to activate additional checks to see how much memory is allocated to hold each object allocated. When this is enabled, listing the allocated objects will also list the number of bytes of heap memory allocated to hold the objects.
This function returns a NULL terminated array listing all the classes for which statistical information has been collected. Usually, you call this function, and then loop on all the classes returned, and for each one you get current, peak and total count by using GSDebugAllocationCount() , GSDebugAllocationPeak() and GSDebugAllocationTotal() .
c

Returns the number of instances of the specified class which are currently allocated. This number is very important to detect memory leaks. If you notice that this number is constantly increasing without apparent reason, it is very likely a memory leak - you need to check that you are correctly releasing objects of this class, otherwise when your application runs for a long time, it will eventually allocate so many objects as to eat up all your system's memory...

This function, like the ones below, returns the number of objects allocated/released from the time when GSDebugAllocationActive() was first called. A negative number means that in total, there are less objects of this class allocated now than there were when you called GSDebugAllocationActive() ; a positive one means there are more.

changeFlag
This function returns a newline separated list of the classes which have instances allocated, and the instance counts. If the 'changeFlag' argument is `YES` then the list gives the number of instances allocated/deallocated since the function was last called with that setting. This function only returns the current count of instances (not the peak or total count), but its output is ready to be displayed or logged.
This function returns a newline separated list of the classes which have had instances allocated at any point, and the total count of the number of instances allocated for each class. The difference with GSDebugAllocationList() is that this function returns also classes which have no objects allocated at the moment, but which had in the past.
c
This function returns an array containing all the allocated objects of a certain class which have been recorded... to start the recording, you need to invoke GSDebugAllocationRecordObjects() . Presumably, you will immediately call [NSObject -description] on them to find out the objects you are leaking. The objects are returned in an autoreleased array, so until the array is deallocated, the objects are not released.
c
Returns the peak number of instances of the specified class which have been concurrently allocated. If this number is very high, it means at some point in time you had a situation with a huge number of objects of this class allocated - this is an indicator that probably at some point in time your application was using a lot of memory - so you might want to investigate whether you can prevent this problem by inserting autorelease pools in your application's processing loops.
c
newState
This function activates (or deactivates) tracking all allocated instances of the specified class c.
Turning on tracking implicitly turns on memory debug (counts) for all classes (GSAllocationActive()).
Deactivation of tracking releases all currently tracked instances of the class (but deactivation of general counting does not).
The previous tracking state as reported as the return value of this function.
This tracking can slow your application down, so you should use it only when you are into serious debugging. Usually, you will monitor your application by using the functions GSDebugAllocationList() and similar, which do not slow things down much and return * the number of allocated instances; when (if) by studying the reports generated by these functions you have found a leak of objects of a certain class, and if you can't figure out how to fix it by looking at the code, you can use this function to start tracking allocated instances of that class, and the following one can sometime allow you to list the leaked objects directly.
c
o
Used internally by NSDeallocateObject() ... you probably don't need this.
object
tag
This function associates the supplied tag with a recorded object and returns the tag which was previously associated with it (if any).
If the object was not recorded, the method returns `nil`
The tag is retained while it is associated with the object.
If the tagged object is deallocated, the tag is released (so you can track the lifetime of the object by having the tag perform some operation when it is released).
See also the NSDebugFRLog() and NSDebugMRLog() macros.
c
Returns the total number of instances of the specified class c which have been allocated - basically the number of times you have allocated an object of this class. If this number is very high, it means you are creating a lot of objects of this class; even if you are releasing them correctly, you must not forget that allocating and deallocating objects is usually one of the slowest things you can do, so you might want to consider whether you can reduce the number of allocations and deallocations that you are doing - for example, by recycling objects of this class, uniquing them, and/or using some sort of flyweight pattern. It might also be possible that you are unnecessarily creating too many objects of this class. Well - of course some times there is nothing you can do about it.
newAddObjectFunc
newRemoveObjectFunc
This functions allows to set own function callbacks for debugging allocation of objects. Useful if you intend to write your own object allocation code.
Retrieve stack information. Use caution: uses built-in gcc functions and currently only works up to 100 frames.
offset
Retrieve stack information. Use caution: uses built-in gcc functions and currently only works up to 100 frames.
offset
Retrieve stack information. Use caution: uses built-in gcc functions and currently only works up to 100 frames.
NSDecimal functions

result
left
right
mode
Adds two decimals and returns result to 38-digit precision. See the <NSDecimalNumberBehaviors> protocol for a description of mode and the return value. The result should be preallocated but can be the same as left or right.
number
Tries to reduce memory used to store number internally.
leftOperand
rightOperand
Returns `NSOrderedDescending`, `NSOrderedSame`, or `NSOrderedAscending` depending on whether leftOperand is greater than, equal to, or less than rightOperand.
destination
source
Copies value of decimal number to preallocated destination.
result
l
rr
mode
Divides l by rr and returns result to 38-digit precision. See the <NSDecimalNumberBehaviors> protocol for a description of mode and the return value. The result should be preallocated but can be the same as l or rr.
number
Give back the value of a NSDecimal as a double in (preallocated) result.
result
mantissa
exponent
negative
Create a NSDecimal with a mantissa, exponent and a negative flag in (preallocated) result.
result
numberValue
locale
Create a NSDecimal from a string using the locale, in (preallocated) result.
decimal
Returns whether decimal represents an invalid number (i.e., an "NaN" as might result from an overflow or a division by zero).
result
Give back the biggest NSDecimal in (preallocated) result.
result
Give back the smallest NSDecimal in (preallocated) result.
result
l
r
mode
Multiplies two decimals and returns result to 38-digit precision. See the <NSDecimalNumberBehaviors> protocol for a description of mode and the return value. The result should be preallocated but can be the same as l or r.
result
n
power
mode
Multiplies n by 10^power and returns result to 38-digit precision. See the <NSDecimalNumberBehaviors> protocol for a description of mode and the return value. The result should be preallocated but can be the same as n.
n1
n2
mode
Sets the exponents of n1 and n2 equal to one another, adjusting mantissas as necessary to preserve values. This makes certain operations quicker.
result
n
power
mode
Raises n to power and returns result to 38-digit precision. See the <NSDecimalNumberBehaviors> protocol for a description of mode and the return value. The result should be preallocated but can be the same as n or power.
result
number
scale
mode
Rounds number to result such that it has at most scale digits to the right of its decimal point, according to mode (see the <NSDecimalNumberBehaviors> protocol). The result should be preallocated but can be the same as number.
decimal
locale
Returns a string representing the full decimal value, formatted according to locale (send `nil` here for default locale).
result
left
right
mode
Subtracts two decimals and returns result to 38-digit precision. See the <NSDecimalNumberBehaviors> protocol for a description of mode and the return value. The result should be preallocated but can be the same as left or right.
NSException functions

Returns the exception handler called when an exception is generated and not caught by the programmer (by enclosing in `NS_DURING` and `NS_HANDLER`... `NS_ENDHANDLER` ). The default prints an error message and exits the program. You can change this behavior by calling NSSetUncaughtExceptionHandler() .
handler

Sets the exception handler called when an exception is generated and not caught by the programmer (by enclosing in `NS_DURING` and `NS_HANDLER` ... `NS_ENDHANDLER`). The default prints an error message and exits the program. proc should take a single argument of type `NSException *`.

NB. If the exception handler set by this function does not terminate the process, the process will be terminateed anyway. This is a safety precaution to ensure that, in the event of an exception being raised and not handled, the program does not try to continue running in a confused state (possibly doing horrible things like billing customers who shouldn't be billed etc), but shuts down as cleanly as possible.

Process termination is normally accomplished by calling the standard exit function of the C runtime library, but if the environment variable CRASH_ON_ABORT is set to `YES` or TRUE or 1 the termination will be accomplished by calling the abort function instead, which should cause a core dump to be made for debugging.

The value of proc should be a pointer to a function taking an NSException instance as an argument.

exception
This is the type of the exception handler called when an exception is generated and not caught by the programmer. See NSGetUncaughtExceptionHandler() , NSSetUncaughtExceptionHandler() .
handler
Private support routine. Do not call directly.
handler
Private support routine. Do not call directly.
NSGeometry functions

aRect
bRect
Returns 'YES' iff aRect totally encloses bRect. NOTE: For this to be the case, aRect cannot be empty, nor can any side of bRect go beyond any side of aRect . Note that this behavior is different than the original OpenStep behavior, where the sides of bRect could not touch aRect.
aRect
slice
remainder
amount
edge
Divides aRect into two rectangles (namely slice and remainder) by "cutting" aRect---parallel to, and a distance amount from the given edge of aRect. You may pass 0 in as either of slice or remainder to avoid obtaining either of the created rectangles.
e1
e2
Compares two edge insets for equality.
top
left
bottom
right
Description forthcoming.
aPoint
bPoint
Returns 'YES' iff aPoint's and bPoint's x- and y-coordinates are the same.
aRect
bRect
Test geometric relationships...
Returns 'YES' iff aRect's and bRect's origin and size are the same.
aSize
bSize
Returns 'YES' iff aSize's and bSize's width and height are the same.
aRect
Returns aRect's height.
aRect
dX
dY
Returns the rectangle obtained by moving each of aRect's horizontal sides inward by dy and each of aRect's vertical sides inward by dx.
NB. For MacOS-X compatability, this is permitted to return a rectanglew with nagative width or height, strange as that seems.
aRect
Returns a rectangle obtained by expanding aRect minimally so that all four of its defining components are integers.
aRect
bRect
Returns the largest rectangle which lies in both aRect and bRect. If aRect and bRect have empty intersection (or, rather, intersection of measure zero, since this includes having their intersection be only a point or a line), then the empty rectangle is returned.
aRect
bRect
Returns `YES` if aRect and bRect have non-zero intersection area (intersecting at a line or a point doesn't count).
aRect
Returns 'YES' iff the area of aRect is zero (i.e., iff either of aRect's width or height is negative or zero).
x
y
Returns an NSPoint having x-coordinate X and y-coordinate Y.
x
y
w
h
Returns an NSRect having point of origin ( x, y) and size {w, h}.
w
h
Returns an NSSize having width w and height h.
aRect
Returns the greatest x-coordinate value still inside aRect.
aRect
Returns the greatest y-coordinate value still inside aRect.
aRect
Returns the x-coordinate of aRect's middle point.
aRect
Returns the y-coordinate of aRect's middle point.
aRect
Returns the least x-coordinate value still inside aRect.
aRect
Returns the least y-coordinate value still inside aRect.
aPoint
aRect
flipped
Returns 'YES' iff aPoint is inside aRect.
aRect
dx
dy
Returns the rectangle obtained by translating aRect horizontally by dx and vertically by dy.
string
Parses point from string of form " `{x=a; y=b}` ". (0,0) returned if parsing fails.
aPoint
aRect
Just like 'NSMouseInRect(aPoint, aRect, `YES`)'.
string
Parses point from string of form " `{x=a; y=b; width=c; height=d}` ". Rectangle of 0 size at origin returned if parsing fails.
string
Parses size from string of form " `{width=a; height=b}` ". Size of 0,0 returned if parsing fails.
aPoint
Returns an NSString of the form "{x=X; y=Y}", where X and Y are the x- and y-coordinates of aPoint, respectively.
Get a String Representation...
aRect
Returns an NSString of the form "{x=X; y=Y; width=W; height=H}", where X, Y, W, and H are the x-coordinate, y-coordinate, width, and height of aRect, respectively.
aSize
Returns an NSString of the form "{width=W; height=H}", where W and H are the width and height of aSize, respectively.
aRect
bRect
Returns the smallest rectangle which contains both aRect and bRect (modulo a set of measure zero). If either of aRect or bRect is an empty rectangle, then the other rectangle is returned. If both are empty, then the empty rectangle is returned.
aRect
Returns aRect's width.
NSHashTable functions

table
Description forthcoming.
table1
table2
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table
zone
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table
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callBacks
capacity
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callBacks
capacity
zone
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enumerator
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table
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table
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table
element
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table
element
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element
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table
element
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table
element
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enumerator
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table
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table
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NSHFSFileTypes functions

hfsFileTypeCode
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fileTypeString
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fullFilePath
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NSLock functions

obj
_cmd
stop
msg
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NSMapTable functions

table
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table
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table1
table2
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table
zone
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table
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keyCallBacks
valueCallBacks
capacity
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keyCallBacks
valueCallBacks
capacity
zone
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enumerator
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table
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table
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table
key
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table
key
value
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table
key
value
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table
key
value
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table
key
originalKey
value
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table
key
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enumerator
key
value
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table
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table
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NSObjCRuntime functions

Returns the lock used to protect the GNUstep NSLogv() implementation. Use this to protect changes to _NSLogDescriptor and _NSLog_printf_handler
aClassName
Returns the class whose name is supplied in the aClassName argument, or Nil if a `nil` string is supplied. If no such class has been loaded, the function returns Nil.
typePtr
sizep
alignp
When provided with a C string containing encoded type information, this method extracts size and alignment information for the specified type into the buffers pointed to by sizep and alignp.
If either sizep or alignp is a null pointer, the corresponding data is not extracted.
The function returns a pointer into the type information C string immediately after the decoded information.
format

Provides the standard OpenStep logging facility. For details see the lower level NSLogv() function (which this function uses).

GNUstep provides powerful alternatives for logging ... see NSDebugLog() , NSWarnLog() and GSPrintf() for example. We recommend the use of NSDebugLog() and its relatives for debug purposes, and GSPrintf() for general log messages, with NSLog() being reserved for reporting possible/likely errors. GSPrintf() is declared in GSObjCRuntime.h.

message
OpenStep spec states that log messages go to stderr, but just in case someone wants them to go somewhere else, they can implement a function like this and assign a pointer to it to _NSLog_printf_handler.
format
args
The core logging function...

The function generates a standard log entry by prepending process ID and date/time information to your message, and ensuring that a newline is present at the end of the message.

In GNUstep, the GSLogThread user default may be set to `YES` in order to instruct this function to include the name (if any) of the current thread after the process ID. This can help you to track the behavior of a multi-threaded program.
Also the GSLogOffset user default may be set to `YES` in order to instruct this function to include the time zone offset in the timestamp it logs (good when examining debug logs from systems running in different countries).

The resulting message is then passed to a handler function to perform actual output. Locking is performed around the call to the function actually writing the message out, to ensure that logging is thread-safe. However, the actual creation of the message written is only as safe as the [NSObject -description] methods of the arguments you supply.

The function to write the data is pointed to by _NSLog_printf_handler

aProtocolName
Returns the protocol whose name is supplied in the aProtocolName argument, or 0 if a `nil` string is supplied.
aSelectorName
Returns (creating if necessary) the selector whose name is supplied in the aSelectorName argument, or 0 if a `nil` string is supplied.
aClass
Returns an NSString object containing the class name for aClass. If aClass is 0, returns `nil`.
aProtocol
Returns a string object containing the name for aProtocol. If aProtocol is 0, returns `nil`.
aSelector
Returns a string object containing the name for aSelector. If aSelector is 0, returns `nil`.
NSObject functions

aClass
extraBytes
zone
Used to allocate memory to hold an object, and initialise the class of the object to be aClass etc. The allocated memory will be extraBytes larger than the space actually needed to hold the instance variables of the object.
This function is used by the [NSObject +allocWithZone:] method.
anObject
extraBytes
zone
Used to copy anObject. This makes a bitwise copy of anObject to memory allocated from zone. The allocated memory will be extraBytes longer than that necessary to actually store the instance variables of the copied object.
anObject
Used to release the memory used by an object.
This function is used by the [NSObject -dealloc] method.
anObject
Examines the extra reference count for the object and, if non-zero decrements it, otherwise leaves it unchanged.
Returns a flag to say whether the count was zero (and hence whether the extra reference count was decremented).
anObject
Return the extra reference count of anObject (a value in the range from 0 to the maximum unsigned integer value minus one).
The retain count for an object is this value plus one.
anObject
Increments the extra reference count for anObject.
The GNUstep version raises an exception if the reference count would be incremented to too large a value.
This is used by the [NSObject -retain] method.
anObject
requestedZone
Returns a flag to indicate whether anObject should be retained or copied in order to make a copy in the specified zone.
Basically, this tests to see if anObject was allocated from requestedZone and returns `YES` if it was.
NSPathUtilities functions

newConfig
Returns a mutable copy of the system-wide configuration used to determine paths to locate files etc.
If the newConfig argument is non-nil it is used to set the config overriding any other version. You should not change the config after the user defaults system has been initialised as the new config will not be picked up by the defaults system.
A typical sequence of operation might be to
Call the function with a `nil` argument to obtain the configuration information currently in use (usually obtained from the main GNUstep configuration file).
Modify the dictionary contents.
Call the function again passing back in the modified config.
If you call this function with a non-nil argument before the system configuration file has been read, you will prevent the file from being read. However, you must take care doing this that creation of the config dictionary you are going to pass in to the function does not have any side-effects which would cause the config file to be read earlier.
If you want to prevent the user specific config file from being read, you must set the GNUSTEP_USER_CONFIG_FILE value in the dictionary to be an empty string.
config
userName
The config dictionary passed to this function should be a system-wide config as provided by GNUstepConfig() ... and this function merges in user specific configuration file information if such a file exists and is owned by the user.
NB. If the GNUSTEP_USER_CONFIG_FILE value in the system-wide config is an empty string, no user-specifc config will be read.
userName
Returns the location of the defaults database for the specified user. This uses the same information you get from GNUstepConfig() and GNUstepUserConfig() and builds the path to the defaults database fromm it.
Return the path of the defaults directory for userName.
This examines the GNUSTEP_USER_CONFIG_FILE for the specified user, with settings in it over-riding those in the main GNUstep.conf.
aName
This extension permits a change of username from that specified in the LOGNAME environment variable. Using it will almost certainly cause trouble if the process does not posses the file access privileges of the new name. This is provided primarily for use by processes that run as system-manager and need to act as particular users. It uses the [NSUserDefaults +resetUserDefaults] extension to reset the defaults system to use the defaults belonging to the new user.
Returns the full username of the current user. If unable to determine this, returns the standard user name.
Return the caller's home directory as an NSString object. Calls NSHomeDirectoryForUser() to do this.
loginName
Returns loginName's home directory as an NSString object.
On most systems this returns the directory specified in the system's password file (ar at least whatever is returned by the standard operating system API for retrieving password file records), but on ms-windows this is determined by examining the HOMEPATH and HOMEDRIVE environment variables or (if those don't make sense) the USERPROFILE environment variable.
Returns the location of the root directory of the file hierarchy. This lets you build paths in a system independent manner (for instance the root on unix is '/' but on windows it is 'C:\') by appending path components to the root.
Don't assume that /System, /Network etc exist in this path (generally they don't)! Use other path utility functions such as NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains() to find standard locations for libraries, applications etc.
Refer to the GNUstep File System Hierarchy documentation for more info.
directoryKey
domainMask
expandTilde
Returns an array of search paths to look at for resources.
The paths are returned in domain order: USER, LOCAL, NETWORK then SYSTEM.
The presence of a path in this list does not mean that the path actually exists in the filesystem.
If you are wanting to locate an existing resource, you should normally call this function with NSAllDomainsMask, but if you wish to find the path in which you should create a new file, you would generally specify a particular domain, and then create the path in the file system if it does not already exist.
Returns the standard paths in which applications are stored and should be searched for. Calls NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains()
Refer to the GNUstep File System Hierarchy documentation for more info.
Returns the standard paths in which resources are stored and should be searched for. Calls NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains()
Refer to the GNUstep File System Hierarchy documentation for more info.
Returns the name of a directory in which temporary files can be stored. Under GNUstep this is a location which is not readable by other users.
If a suitable directory can't be found or created, this function raises an NSGenericException.
Return the caller's login name as an NSString object.
Under unix-like systems, the name associated with the current effective user ID is used.
Under ms-windows, the 'LOGNAME' environment is used, or if that fails, the GetUserName() call is used to find the user name.
Raises an exception on failure.
NSProcessInfo functions

level
Function for rapid testing to see if a debug level is set.
This is used by the debugging macros.
If debug logging has been turned off, this returns `NO` even if the specified level exists in the set of debug levels.
argc
argv
envp
Fallback/override function.
The developer must call this method to initialize the NSProcessInfo system if none of the system-specific hacks to auto-initialize it are working.
It is also safe to call this function to override the effects of the automatic initialisation, which some applications may need to do when using GNUstep libraries embedded within other frameworks.
env
context
Android process initialization function. This should be called on Android to initialize GNUstep with the JNI environment and application context, which is used to set up support for the Android data directory and asset loading via NSBundle.
NSRange functions

range1
range2
Returns whether range1 and range2 have same location and length.
aRange
bRange
Returns range containing indices existing in both aRange and bRange. If the returned length is 0, the location is undefined and should be ignored.
location
range
Returns whether location is greater than or equal to range's location and less than its max.
location
length
Creates new range starting at location and of given length.
range
Returns top end of range (location + length).
aString
Parses range from string of form {location=a, length=b}; returns range with 0 location and length if this fails.
range
Returns string of form {location=a, length=b}.
aRange
bRange
Returns range going from minimum of aRange's and bRange's locations to maximum of their two max's.
Convenience method for raising an NSRangeException.
NSSet functions

count
This function purges the global NSCountedSet object used for uniquing. It handles locking as necessary. It can be used to purge the set even when uniquing is turned off.
anObject
count
This function sets the count for the specified object. If the count for the object is set to zero then the object is removed from the global uniquing set. The object is added to the set if necessary. The object returned is the one stored in the set. The function handles locking as necessary. It can be used to alter the set even when uniquing is turned off.
anObject
This function uniques the supplied argument, returning the result. It works by using the [-unique:] method of a global NSCountedSet object. It handles locking as necessary. If uniquing is turned off, it simply returns its argument.
flag
This function sets the state of a flag that determines the behavior of the GSUnique() function. If the flag is on, uniquing is performed, if it is off the function has no effect. The default is for uniquing to be turned off.
NSSpellServer functions

vendor
language
Description forthcoming.
NSThread functions

This function is provided to let threads started by some other software library register themselves to be used with the GNUstep system. All such threads should call this function before attempting to use any GNUstep objects.

Returns `YES` if the thread can be registered, `NO` if it is already registered.

Sends out a `NSWillBecomeMultiThreadedNotification` if the process was not already multithreaded.

This function is provided to let threads started by some other software library unregister themselves from the GNUstep threading system.

Calling this function causes a `NSThreadWillExitNotification` to be sent out, and destroys the GNUstep NSThread object associated with the thread (like [NSThread +exit] ) but does not exit the underlying thread.

NSZone functions

destination
source
This function must be used to assign a value to a zeroing weak pointer.
A zeroing weak pointer is one where, when the garbage collector collects the object pointed to, it also clears the weak pointer.
Assigning zero (`nil`) will always succeed and has the effect of telling the garbage collector that it no longer needs to track the previously assigned object. Apart from that case, a source needs to be garbage collectable for this function to work, and using a non-garbage collectable value will cause the function to return `NO`.
If the destination object (the weak pointer watching the source object) belongs to a chunk of memory which may be collected before the source object is collected, it is important that it is finalised and the finalisation code assigns zero to the pointer.
If garbage collection is not in use, this function performs a simple assignment returning `YES`, unless destination is null in which case it returns `NO`.
theClass
iVarName
Called during +initialize to tell the class that instances created in future should have the specified instance variable as a weak pointer for garbage collection.
NB. making a pointer weak does not mean that it is automatically zeroed when the object it points to is garbage collected. To get that behavior you must asign values to the pointer using the GSAssignZeroingWeakPointer() function.
This function has no effect if the system is not built for garbage collection.
size
retry
Try to get more memory - the normal process has failed. If we can't do anything, just return a null pointer. Try to do some logging if possible.
size
options
Allocate memory. If garbage collection is not enabled this uses the default malloc zone and the options are ignored.
If garbage collection is enabled, the allocate memory is normally not scanned for pointers but is itsself garbage collectable. The options argument is a bitmask in which NSScannedOption sets the memory to be scanned for pointers by the garbage collector, and NSCollectorDisabledOption causes the memory to be excempt from being garbage collected itsself.
In any case the memory returned is zero'ed.
bytes
Allocate memory for this process and return a pointer to it (or a null pointer on failure). The allocated memory is page aligned and the actual size of memory allocated is a multiple of the page size.
src
dest
bytes
Perform an efficient large scale copy of data from src to dest. The value bytes specifies the length of the data copied.
start
gran
canFree
Creates a new zone of start bytes, which will grow and shrink by granularity bytes. If canFree is 0, memory in zone is allocated but never freed, meaning allocation will be very fast. The whole zone can still be freed with NSRecycleZone() , and you should still call NSZoneFree on memory in the zone that is no longer needed, since a count of allocated pointers is kept and must reach zero before freeing the zone.
If Garbage Collection is enabled, this function does nothing other than log a warning and return the same value as the NSDefaultMallocZone() function.
ptr
bytes
Deallocate memory which was previously allocated using the NSAllocateMemoryPages() function.
The bytes argument should be the same as the value passed to the NSAllocateMemoryPages() function.
Returns the default zone for memory allocation. Memory created in this zone is the same as memory allocates using the system malloc() function.
Return log base 2 of the number of bytes in a memory page.
cf
Description forthcoming.
Return the number of bytes in a memory page.
Return the number of bytes of real (physical) memory available.
ptr
size
options
Reallocate memory to be of a different size and/or to have different options settings. The behavior of options is as for the NSAllocateCollectable() function.
zone
Return memory for an entire zone to system. In fact, this will not be done unless all memory in the zone has been explicitly freed (by calls to NSZoneFree()). For "non-freeable" zones, the number of NSZoneFree() calls must simply equal the number of allocation calls. The default zone, on the other hand, cannot be recycled.
If Garbage Collection is enabled, this function has not effect.
bytes
Round bytes down to the nearest multiple of the memory page size, and return it.
bytes
Round bytes up to the nearest multiple of the memory page size, and return it.
zone
name
Sets name of the given zone (useful for debugging and logging).
zone
elems
bytes
Allocates and returns cleared memory for elems items of size bytes, in the given zone. Returns NULL if allocation of size 0 requested. Raises `NSMallocException` if not enough free memory in zone to allocate and no more can be obtained from system, unless using the default zone, in which case NULL is returned.
If Garbage Collection is enabled, this function always allocates non-scanned, non-collectable memory in the NSDefaultMallocZone() and the zone argument is ignored.
zone
Deprecated...
Checks integrity of a zone. Not defined by OpenStep or OS X.
zone
ptr
Frees memory pointed to by ptr (which should have been allocated by a previous call to NSZoneMalloc() , NSZoneCalloc() , or NSZoneRealloc()) and returns it to zone. Note, if this is a nonfreeable zone, the memory is not actually freed, but the count of number of free()s is updated.
If Garbage Collection is enabled, the zone argument is ignored and this function causes ptr to be deallocated immediately.
ptr
Searches and finds the zone ptr was allocated from. The speed depends upon the number of zones and their size.
If Garbage Collection is enabled, this function always returns the same as the NSDefaultMallocZone() function.
zone
size
Allocates and returns memory for elems items of size bytes, in the given zone. Returns NULL if allocation of size 0 requested. Raises `NSMallocException` if not enough free memory in zone to allocate and no more can be obtained from system, unless using the default zone, in which case NULL is returned.
If Garbage Collection is enabled, this function always allocates non-scanned, non-collectable memory in the NSDefaultMallocZone() and the zone argument is ignored.
zone
Returns the name of the given zone (useful for debugging and logging).
zone
ptr
size
Reallocates the chunk of memory in zone pointed to by ptr to a new one of size bytes. Existing contents in ptr are copied over. Raises an `NSMallocException` if insufficient memory is available in the zone and no more memory can be obtained from the system, unless using the default zone, in which case NULL is returned.
If Garbage Collection is enabled, the zone argument is ignored.
zone
Deprecated...
Obtain statistics about the zone. Implementation emphasis is on correctness, not speed. Not defined by OpenStep or OS X.