introduction.xml 2.2 KB

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  1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  2. <!DOCTYPE section PUBLIC "-//Boost//DTD BoostBook XML V1.0//EN"
  3. "http://www.boost.org/tools/boostbook/dtd/boostbook.dtd">
  4. <!--
  5. Copyright Douglas Gregor 2001-2004
  6. Copyright Frank Mori Hess 2007-2009
  7. Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
  8. file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)
  9. -->
  10. <section last-revision="$Date: 2007-06-12 14:01:23 -0400 (Tue, 12 Jun 2007) $">
  11. <title>Introduction</title>
  12. <para>The Boost.Signals2 library is an implementation of a managed
  13. signals and slots system. Signals represent callbacks with multiple
  14. targets, and are also called publishers or events in similar
  15. systems. Signals are connected to some set of slots, which are
  16. callback receivers (also called event targets or subscribers), which
  17. are called when the signal is "emitted."</para>
  18. <para>Signals and slots are managed, in that signals and slots (or,
  19. more properly, objects that occur as part of the slots) can track
  20. connections and are capable of automatically disconnecting signal/slot
  21. connections when either is destroyed. This enables the user to make
  22. signal/slot connections without expending a great effort to manage the
  23. lifetimes of those connections with regard to the lifetimes of all
  24. objects involved.</para>
  25. <para>When signals are connected to multiple slots, there is a
  26. question regarding the relationship between the return values of the
  27. slots and the return value of the signals. Boost.Signals2 allows the
  28. user to specify the manner in which multiple return values are
  29. combined.</para>
  30. <section>
  31. <title>Signals2</title>
  32. <para>This documentation describes a thread-safe variant of the
  33. original Boost.Signals library. There have been some changes to
  34. the interface to support thread-safety, mostly with respect to
  35. automatic connection management. This implementation was written by
  36. Frank Mori Hess. Acknowledgements are also due to Timmo Stange, Peter
  37. Dimov, and Tony Van Eerd for ideas and feedback, and to Douglas Gregor
  38. for the original version of Boost.Signals this effort was based on.
  39. </para>
  40. </section>
  41. </section>