The goal of this api is to be a complete high level object oriented interface for accessing, creating, and modifying vector data. Previous releases of the vector library were never designed from an end user point of view but were a collection of functions which provided a mechanism to access the data. This API has been completely redesigned from the ground up and should solve most of the problems inherent in the previous releases.
The API attempts to hide much of the complexity of working with vector data and instead provides an interface to higher level objects. For example, all file management is handled by the API and the client needs only deal with map objects. The details of managing arc data are hidden in an arc object, and modifications to maps are managed through simple methods such as add and delete.
Note that the hierarchy of this document tree is very simple. The top is the
page Vector API. From that page there are a number of
leaves which are single files organized by conceptual sub-groups within
the API. There is also a small number of leave pages
which describe more general topics which aid in understanding the
sub-groups. There is also a link to the dpg library top page.
That page is set up similar to the Vector API page, in that below it are
several leaf pages which represent the sub-groups of that
library. Each sub-group page has an intro and then an index of each of
the functions in that group. Those functions then follow
along with a short description.
Dec 1994