Camelot Documentation
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Types and Primitives

The Types subsystem provides standard integer boundaries, safe memory views and string manipulation.

Primitives

TIP

Rationale Standard C types (int, long) vary wildly across platforms.

Concept

Camelot defines standard fixed-width integer sizes and floating-point aliases to guarantee architectural consistency. It also polyfills nullptr for pre-C23 compilers.

API Reference

Numeric Typedefs

typedef uint8_t  u8;   typedef int8_t   i8;
typedef uint16_t u16;  typedef int16_t  i16;
typedef uint32_t u32;  typedef int32_t  i32;
typedef uint64_t u64;  typedef int64_t  i64;
typedef float    f32;  typedef double   f64;
  • Description: Defines strict type sizes during compilation. Exact sizing for cross-platform structs and binary protocols.

CAUTION

Caveats Compiler enforced via standard headers. Does not support implicit arbitrary precision.

Slice and String

TIP

Rationale To replace null-terminated strings and unsafe pointer arithmetic.

Concept

A Slice is a fat pointer view of contiguous memory. A String is a typedef of a Slice explicitly containing character data.

API Reference

Slice & String

typedef struct {
    u8* ptr;
    size_t len;
} Slice;

typedef Slice String;
  • Description: Structs representing a non-owning fat pointer and a string view, respectively.

SLICE_new

  • Signature: Slice SLICE_new(u8* buffer, size_t len)
  • Description: Creates a new slice from a buffer.

SLICE_sub

  • Signature: Slice SLICE_sub(Slice s, size_t offset, size_t len)
  • Description: Creates a sub-slice from an existing slice.

STRING_new

  • Signature: String STRING_new(const char* literal, size_t len)
  • Description: Creates a new string view from a char pointer.

CAUTION

Caveats These are non-owning views. They do not manage memory and will become dangling pointers if their backing array is deallocated.

OwnedString

TIP

Rationale To pair allocated strings directly with their source to prevent double-free errors and allocator mismatch.

Concept

An OwnedString pairs a String with the Allocator that originated it, ensuring correct memory teardown.

API Reference

OwnedString

typedef struct {
    Allocator* alloc;
    String view;
} OwnedString;
  • Description: Struct tracking a string and its allocator.

STRING_format

  • Signature: CAMELOT_NODISCARD Result STRING_format(Allocator* alloc, const char* fmt, ...)
  • Description: Formats a string (like sprintf) using the provided allocator.
  • Returns: A Result containing the OwnedString.

STRING_formatVariadic

  • Signature: CAMELOT_NODISCARD Result STRING_formatVariadic(Allocator* alloc, const char* fmt, va_list args)
  • Description: Variadic version of STRING_format.

OWNEDSTRING_deinit

  • Signature: void OWNEDSTRING_deinit(OwnedString* str)
  • Description: Frees the string’s memory using its tracked allocator.

CAUTION

Caveats Requires manual cleanup via OWNEDSTRING_deinit. Failing to do so causes a memory leak.

String Splitting

TIP

Rationale To avoid allocating duplicate memory for string tokens during parsing operations.

Concept

Splits a string by a delimiter into a dynamically allocated array of zero-copy string views.

API Reference

STRING_split

  • Signature: CAMELOT_NODISCARD Result STRING_split(Allocator* alloc, String s, char delim)
  • Description: Splits the string s by delim.
  • Returns: A Result containing a Vector* of String slices.

CAUTION

Caveats The String slices inside the vector are zero-copy and point to the original string memory. The user must free the vector’s internal buffer via VECTOR_deinit and then free the Vector pointer itself using the provided allocator.