Defined in file: hzString.h

hzChain is an unlimited char buffer, for any purpose but widely used to assemble complex string values such as HTTP server responses. To this end, hzChain has both standard append functions and Printf, a vararg printf type member function. String assembly must be as a series of one or more append operations as no INSERT method is provided. The content is held in a double linked list of fixed sized blocks rather than as contiguous memory. This arrangement avoids reallocation and copying during string assembly, but not if a hzChain of more than one block is cast to a null terminated character string. Such casting however, is not the norm. hzChain instances are expected to be iterated from begining to end. An iterator is provided as a sub-class for this purpose. Although the double linked list allows iterators to decrement, this facility is not used in any current HadronZoo software and should be considered as deprecated. In addition to acting as a single string value container, hzChain allows blocks to be deleted from the front, making it suitable for processing data streams. Incomming data and requests from connected clients and server responses, are both processed as data streams by the hzIpServer class. Once the iterator processing the incomming data passes onto the next block, the first block is discarded. Likewise once blocks in the outgoing data have been written to the socket, they are discarded. Doing this prevents chains becoming ever larger in cases where clients remain connected and make a large number of requests. Note that while hzChain is good for string assembly, the fixed block size makes it a poor choice for string storage. Once assembled, strings should be stored as hzString.

This class employes the private sub-class _chain as follows:-

_chain

Constructors/Detructors

Public Methods:

Overloaded operators:

Member Variables: