Introduction to cookie terminology

The cookie package uses its own terminology. Here are some important definitions.

cookie

A cookie can be any lisp object. When you use the cookie package you specify a pretty-printer, a function that inserts a printable representation of the cookie in the buffer.

collection

A collection consists of a doubly linked list of cookies, a header, a footer and a pretty-printer. It is displayed at a certain point in a certain buffer. (The buffer and point are selected when the collection is created). The header and the footer are constant strings. They appear before and after the cookies. (Currently, once set, they can not be changed).

tin

A tin is an object that contains one cookie. There are functions in this package that given a tin extracts the cookie, or gives the next or previous tin. (All tins are linked together in a doubly linked list. The previous tin is the one that appears before the other in the buffer.) You should not do anything with a tin except pass it to the functions in this package.

Cookie does not affect the mode of the buffer in any way. It merely makes it easy to connect an underlying data representation to the buffer contents.

A collection is a very dynamic thing. You can easily add or delete cookies. You can sort all cookies in a collection (you have to supply a function that compares two cookies). You can apply a function to all cookies in a collection, etc, etc.

Remember that a cookie can be anything. Your imagination is the limit! It is even possible to have another collection as a cookie. In that way some kind of tree hierarchy can be created.

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