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