How the Swarm API Document is Organized

This API (Application Programming Interface) document has pages corresponding to the items in the navigation bar, described as follows.

Additional Swarm Conventions

This API documentation conforms to the API that would be generated by the standard Sun javadoc run in most respects, and are detailed in the sections following this one. This section sets out the exceptions.

The Swarm class hierarchy (as opposed to the interface hierarchy) is virtually flat. All instantiatable Swarm objects are subclasses of java.lang.Object. This means that all methods that a class provides are made available in that class, which can result in some very long lists of methods which generate much redundant documentation. So in the case of instantiatable Swarm classes, the method detail is forgone, and replaced with links to the method documentation to the interface which that class implements. For example:

• the swarm.collections.ListImpl class, has a box with the heading Methods implemented by this class for interface swarm.collections.List, which contains links to the methods addFirst, addLast, listBegin, removeFirst, removeLast which are implemented in the ListImpl class but documented in the List interface.

All Java classes that are required for the correct operation of Swarm, but have no corresponding user-creatable Objective C classes are suppressed in the API output. This means that there may be some `Impl' classes that will appear in the swarm.jar file, but not in this document.

Overview

The Overview page is the front page of this API document and provides a list of all packages with a summary for each. This page can also contain an overall description of the set of packages.

Package

Each package has a page that contains a list of its classes and interfaces, with a summary for each. This page can contain four categories:

• Interfaces (italic)
• Classes
• Exceptions
• Errors

Class/Interface

Each class, interface, inner class and inner interface has its own separate page. Each of these pages has three sections consisting of a class/interface description, summary tables, and detailed member descriptions:

• Class inheritance diagram
• Direct Subclasses
• All Known Subinterfaces
• All Known Implementing Classes
• Class/interface declaration
• Class/interface description

• Inner Class Summary
• Field Summary
• Constructor Summary
• Method Summary

• Field Detail
• Constructor Detail
• Method Detail

Each summary entry contains the first sentence from the detailed description for that item. The summary entries are alphabetical, while the detailed descriptions are in the order they appear in the source code. This preserves the logical groupings established by the programmer.

Tree (Class Hierarchy)

There is a Class Hierarchy page for all packages, plus a hierarchy for each package. Each hierarchy page contains a list of classes and a list of interfaces. The classes are organized by inheritance structure starting with java.lang.Object. The interfaces do not inherit from java.lang.Object.

• When viewing the Overview page, clicking on "Tree" displays the hierarchy for all packages.
• When viewing a particular package, class or interface page, clicking "Tree" displays the hierarchy for only that package.

Deprecated API

The Deprecated API page lists all of the API that have been deprecated. A deprecated API is not recommended for use, generally due to improvements, and a replacement API is usually given. Deprecated APIs may be removed in future implementations.

Index

The Index contains an alphabetic list of all classes, interfaces, constructors, methods, and fields.

Prev/Next

These links take you to the next or previous class, interface, package, or related page.

Frames/No Frames

These links show and hide the HTML frames. All pages are available with or without frames.

Serialized Form

Each serializable or externalizable class has a description of its serialization fields and methods. This information is of interest to re-implementors, not to developers using the API. While there is no link in the navigation bar, you can get to this information by going to any serialized class and clicking "Serialized Form" in the "See also" section of the class description.

This help file applies to API documentation generated using the Swarm doclet, which is a slightly modified form of the standard Sun doclet.