W3C Activities PICS-client

PICS Sample Code Library Position Statement

The PICS Sample Code Library provides tools for adding PICS functionality to web applications like browsers, proxies, and PICS selection interfaces. The PICS Library is intended to demonstrate PICS on a working client (see the LineMode browser) and to assist builders of these applications to quickly integrate PICS into their programs. The PICS Library may be used in conjunction with the W3C Sample Code Library, or as a stand-alone collection of utilities. This is the PICS position statement of direction concerning PICS Reference Library and it is part of the W3C position statements.

Background

The PICS Sample Code Library, a.k.a. libpics, was written for the PICS consortium by Eric Prud'hommeuax. It was released to the public to provide a reference to speed up PICS application development in the web community.

Current Status

The utility portion of the PICS Library is based on very simple C-code and makes no architecture assumptions. It should, therefor, be portable to any platform with a C compiler. The full library may be ported anywhere the W3C Sample Code Library may be ported, ie. Unix, MS Windows, and Macintosh.

Considerable care was taken in providing a set of APIs that would be extensible without changing the interface. Only time will tell how well that was accomplished.

Example Applications

These examples demonstrate the the use of the PICS Reference Library, both in conjunction with the W3C Sample Code Library, and as a stand-alone library.

LMB Line Mode Browser
The Line Mode Browser is a character-based Web browser developed for use on terminals. It is an example of a client application using the libwww. It is also useful as a test tool for quick access to the Web from scripts, cron jobs etc.
LablPars and RatPars demonstrate the use of the PICS parser. They check the syntax for PICS lables         and PICS service descriptions respectively.

Documentation

Please see the user W3C PICS Sample Code Library Documentation for a more complete description.


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Eric Prud'hommeaux, eric@w3.org, @(#) $Id: Date Author State $