Inside Macintosh: Operating System Utilities /

Preface - About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Inside Macintosh uses special conventions to present certain types of information.

Special Fonts

All code listings, reserved words, and names of actual data structures, fields, constants, parameters, and routines are shown in Courier (this is Courier).

Words that appear in boldface are key terms or concepts and are defined in the glossary.

Types of Notes

There are several types of notes used in this book.

Note

A note like this contains information that is interesting but not essential to an understanding of the main text. (An example appears on page 1-5.)

IMPORTANT

A note like this contains information that is essential for an understanding of the main text. (An example appears on page 4-6.)

WARNING

Warnings like this indicate potential problems that you should be aware of as you design your application. Failure to heed these warnings could result in system crashes or loss of data. (An example appears on page 1-12.)

Assembly-Language Information

Inside Macintosh provides information about the registers for specific routines in this format:

Registers on entry
A0	Contents of register A0 on entry

Registers on exit
D0	Contents of register D0 on exit

In the "Assembly-Language Summary" section at the end of each chapter, Inside Macintosh presents information about the fields of data structures in
this format:

0	what	word	event code
2	message	long	event message
6	when	long	ticks since startup

The left column indicates the byte offset of the field from the beginning of the data structure. The second column shows the field name as defined in the MPW Pascal interface files; the third column indicates the size of that field. The fourth column provides a brief description of the use of the field. For a complete description of each field, see the discussion of the data structure in the reference section of the chapter.

In addition, Inside Macintosh presents information about the fields of a parameter block in this format:

Parameter block
<->	inAndOut	Integer	Input/output parameter.
<--	output1	Ptr	Output parameter.
-->	input1	Ptr	Input parameter.

The arrow in the far left column indicates whether the field is an input parameter, output parameter, or both. You must supply values for all input parameters and input/output parameters. The routine returns values in output parameters and input/output parameters.

The second column shows the field name as defined in the MPW Pascal interface files; the third column indicates the Pascal data type of that field. The fourth column provides a brief description of the use of the field. For a complete description of each field, see the discussion that follows the parameter block or the description of the parameter block in the reference section of the chapter.