The C++ class libraries provide an object oriented interface for communication with the ECS Engine. You can use them for event input and output, and for communication between an ECS Engine and Annotation Server.

The C++ Class libraries are a wrapper around the C Event I/O and Annotation APIs. The class libraries provide higher-level access to the annotation and event I/O facilities by hiding the mechanics of establishing socket connections. However, because they are based on the same mechanism they share the same limitations as the C APIs (no more than 8 connections).

This training module assumes that you are already familiar with the C APIs.

The ECS classes are:

ECS_Engine

Provides a handle for the ECS Engine, to which events and messages are sent/received for I/O and annotation.

ECS_Event

Represents the format in which event I/O data is input to, and output from, the ECS engine. Contains the PDU (Protocol Data Unit), encoding type, event syntax and creation time, and methods for getting and setting these.

ECS_EventFilter

Used to specify the filtering that is to be applied to events output by the engine before they are passed to an ECS_EventReceiver.

ECS_EventReceiver

The interface to which all classes that register to receive events from an engine must conform. Create a subclass of this class and override the method handleEvent() to provide the behavior that your application requires.

ECS_Reader

Supports the development of an interface performing both input and output from the correlation engine in a single process. This configuration is not recommended and should only be used where the application demands it.

ECS_AnnoData

Essentially an attribute value list with the added ability to convert to and from an ECDL-like ECS formatted value string.

ECS_AttrValueList

The attribute value list class. Instances of this class can contain an ordered heterogeneous collection of data, and methods that provide type safe access to that data.

ECS_AnnoFilter

Allows filtering of annotation requests to circuits and nodes.

ECS_AnnoRequest

Encapsulates an annotation request message from the engine. Contains an instance of the class ECS_AnnoData, the name of the circuit and annotation node which issued the request, and the sequence number and expiry time of the request.

ECS_Annotater

The interface that must be supported by any class registered to receive and process annotation requests. Create a subclass of this class and override the definition of the method receiveRegquest() in the derived class to perform the appropriate annotation functionality.