2. About This Document

This document describes the GM message passing system. The document describes the GM-1.1 API, which is both simpler to use and more powerful that the GM-1.0 API. The 1.0 API will continue to be supported by the GM libraries for the foreseeable future and GM-1.0 programs actually run significantly faster under GM-1.1 than under GM-1.0, but new programs should use the GM API as described in this document.

This document exists in the following formats:

Adobe Acrobat (gm.pdf)

best suited for printing (using Adobe Acrobat Reader). This format produces publication quality output. It can also be read online if you have installed the Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in for your browser, but startup time can be quite large when doing so over a slow network connection.

ASCII (gm.txt)

best suited for email and ASCII-only environments. All graphical figures are represented as "ASCII art".

Gnu info format (gm.info)

best suited for interactive Unix online use with searching and indexing. Viewing this version of the documentation requires the Gnu `info' program, available as source from the Free Software Foundation's ftp server. All graphical figures are represented as "ASCII art".

Hypertext Markup Language (gm_toc.html)

best suited for online interactive viewing with your favorite browser. All graphical figures are included as inline images.

Monolithic Hypertext Markup Language (gm.html)

Second-best suited for printing if you can't print the Adobe Acrobat version.

The following typeface conventions are used in this document:

• Text like `this' represents user input.
• Text like this represents code.
• Text like this represents variables.
• Text like `this' represents files.
• Text like this() represents a function name, with the return type and parameters unspecified. Such references should not be interpreted to necessarily represent a function with no parameters and/or no return value. The absence of a return value or parameters is indicated only by the use of the keyword void, as in "void function(void)", which indicates that function() returns nothing and requires no parameter.

Note that the figures in this document are images with have been rendered using Times as the serif typeface and Courier as the fixed-width typeface, so the type in the images may appear somewhat different from the text in the body of your document if your browser is set to use different typefaces.

Numerical constants are represented in this document using the C language conventions.