lib.rst cleanups and reorderings

doc/lib.rst

@@ -7,10 +7,7 @@ Nim Standard Library
 
 .. contents::
 
-  "The good thing about reinventing the wheel is that you can get a round one."
+Nim's library is divided into *pure libraries*, *impure libraries* and *wrappers*.
-
-Though the Nim Standard Library is still evolving, it is already quite
-usable. It is divided into *pure libraries*, *impure libraries* and *wrappers*.
 
 Pure libraries do not depend on any external ``*.dll`` or ``lib*.so`` binary
 while impure libraries do. A wrapper is an impure library that is a very
@@ -18,16 +15,19 @@ low-level interface to a C library.
 
 Read this `document <apis.html>`_ for a quick overview of the API design.
 
-In addition to the modules in the standard library, third-party packages
+
-created by the Nim community can be used via `Nimble <#nimble>`_, Nim's
+Nimble
-package manager.
+======
+
+Nim's standard library only covers the basics, check
+out `<https://nimble.directory/>`_ for a list of 3rd party packages.
 
 
 Pure libraries
 ==============
 
-Core
+Automatic imports
-----
+-----------------
 
 * `system <system.html>`_
   Basic procs and operators that every program needs. It also provides IO
@@ -36,56 +36,67 @@ Core
   magic to work.
 
 * `threads <threads.html>`_
-  Nim thread support. **Note**: This is part of the system module. Do not
+  Basic Nim thread support. **Note**: This is part of the system module. Do not
-  import it explicitly.
+  import it explicitly. Enabled with ``--threads:on``.
 
 * `channels <channels.html>`_
   Nim message passing support for threads. **Note**: This is part of the
-  system module. Do not import it explicitly.
+  system module. Do not import it explicitly. Enabled with ``--threads:on``.
+
+
+Core
+----
+
+* `bitops <bitops.html>`_
+  Provides a series of low level methods for bit manipulation.
+
+* `cpuinfo <cpuinfo.html>`_
+  This module implements procs to determine the number of CPUs / cores.
+
+* `endians <endians.html>`_
+  This module contains helpers that deal with different byte orders.
+
+* `lenientops <lenientops.html>`_
+  Provides binary operators for mixed integer/float expressions for convenience.
 
 * `locks <locks.html>`_
   Locks and condition variables for Nim.
 
-* `rlocks <rlocks.html>`_
-  Reentrant locks for Nim.
-
 * `macros <macros.html>`_
   Contains the AST API and documentation of Nim for writing macros.
 
+* `rlocks <rlocks.html>`_
+  Reentrant locks for Nim.
+
 * `typeinfo <typeinfo.html>`_
   Provides (unsafe) access to Nim's run time type information.
 
 * `typetraits <typetraits.html>`_
   This module defines compile-time reflection procs for working with types.
 
-* `threadpool <threadpool.html>`_
+* `volatile <volatile.html>`_
-  Implements Nim's `spawn <manual.html#parallel-amp-spawn>`_.
+  This module contains code for generating volatile loads and stores,
-
+  which are useful in embedded and systems programming.
-* `cpuinfo <cpuinfo.html>`_
-  This module implements procs to determine the number of CPUs / cores.
-
-* `lenientops <lenientops.html>`_
-  Provides binary operators for mixed integer/float expressions for convenience.
-
-* `bitops <bitops.html>`_
-  Provides a series of low level methods for bit manipulation.
 
 
-Collections and algorithms
+Algorithms
---------------------------
+----------
 
 * `algorithm <algorithm.html>`_
   Implements some common generic algorithms like sort or binary search.
 
-* `tables <tables.html>`_
+* `sequtils <sequtils.html>`_
-  Nim hash table support. Contains tables, ordered tables and count tables.
+  This module implements operations for the built-in seq type
+  which were inspired by functional programming languages.
 
-* `sets <sets.html>`_
-  Nim hash and bit set support.
 
-* `lists <lists.html>`_
+
-  Nim linked list support. Contains singly and doubly linked lists and
+Collections
-  circular lists ("rings").
+-----------
+
+* `critbits <critbits.html>`_
+  This module implements a *crit bit tree* which is an efficient
+  container for a sorted set of strings, or for a sorted mapping of strings.
 
 * `deques <deques.html>`_
   Implementation of a double-ended queue.
@@ -97,28 +108,51 @@ Collections and algorithms
 * `intsets <intsets.html>`_
   Efficient implementation of a set of ints as a sparse bit set.
 
-* `critbits <critbits.html>`_
+* `lists <lists.html>`_
-  This module implements a *crit bit tree* which is an efficient
+  Nim linked list support. Contains singly and doubly linked lists and
-  container for a sorted set of strings, or for a sorted mapping of strings.
+  circular lists ("rings").
 
-* `sequtils <sequtils.html>`_
+* `options <options.html>`_
-  This module implements operations for the built-in seq type
+  The option type encapsulates an optional value.
-  which were inspired by functional programming languages.
+
+* `sets <sets.html>`_
+  Nim hash and bit set support.
+
+* `sharedlist <sharedlist.html>`_
+  Nim shared linked list support. Contains shared singly linked list.
 
 * `sharedtables <sharedtables.html>`_
   Nim shared hash table support. Contains shared tables.
 
-* `sharedlist <sharedlist.html>`_
+* `tables <tables.html>`_
-  Nim shared linked list support. Contains shared singly linked list.
+  Nim hash table support. Contains tables, ordered tables and count tables.
+
 
 
 String handling
 ---------------
 
-* `strutils <strutils.html>`_
+* `std/editdistance <editdistance.html>`_
-  This module contains common string handling operations like changing
+  This module contains an algorithm to compute the edit distance between two
-  case of a string, splitting a string into substrings, searching for
+  Unicode strings.
-  substrings, replacing substrings.
+
+* `encodings <encodings.html>`_
+  Converts between different character encodings. On UNIX, this uses
+  the ``iconv`` library, on Windows the Windows API.
+
+* `parseutils <parseutils.html>`_
+  This module contains helpers for parsing tokens, numbers, identifiers, etc.
+
+* `pegs <pegs.html>`_
+  This module contains procedures and operators for handling PEGs.
+
+* `punycode <punycode.html>`_
+  Implements a representation of Unicode with the limited ASCII character subset.
+
+* `ropes <ropes.html>`_
+  This module contains support for a *rope* data type.
+  Ropes can represent very long strings efficiently; especially concatenation
+  is done in O(1) instead of O(n).
 
 * `strformat <strformat.html>`_
   Macro based standard string interpolation / formatting. Inspired by
@@ -128,9 +162,6 @@ String handling
   This module contains uncommon string handling operations that do not
   fit with the commonly used operations in strutils.
 
-* `parseutils <parseutils.html>`_
-  This module contains helpers for parsing tokens, numbers, identifiers, etc.
-
 * `strscans <strscans.html>`_
   This module contains a ``scanf`` macro for convenient parsing of mini languages.
 
@@ -139,6 +170,11 @@ String handling
   from strings to strings. Supports a case-sensitive, case-insensitive and
   style-insensitive modes.
 
+* `strutils <strutils.html>`_
+  This module contains common string handling operations like changing
+  case of a string, splitting a string into substrings, searching for
+  substrings, replacing substrings.
+
 * `unicode <unicode.html>`_
   This module provides support to handle the Unicode UTF-8 encoding.
 
@@ -146,36 +182,41 @@ String handling
   It provides a single proc that does Unicode to ASCII transliterations.
   Based on Python's Unidecode module.
 
-* `punycode <punycode.html>`_
-  Implements a representation of Unicode with the limited ASCII character subset.
-
-* `encodings <encodings.html>`_
-  Converts between different character encodings. On UNIX, this uses
-  the ``iconv`` library, on Windows the Windows API.
-
-* `pegs <pegs.html>`_
-  This module contains procedures and operators for handling PEGs.
-
-* `ropes <ropes.html>`_
-  This module contains support for a *rope* data type.
-  Ropes can represent very long strings efficiently; especially concatenation
-  is done in O(1) instead of O(n).
-
-* `std/editdistance <editdistance.html>`_
-  This module contains an algorithm to compute the edit distance between two
-  Unicode strings.
-
 * `std/wordwrap <wordwrap.html>`_
   This module contains an algorithm to wordwrap a Unicode string.
 
-* `experimental/diff <diff.html>`_
+
-  This module contains an algorithm to compute the famous "diff"
+Time handling
-  of two texts by line.
+-------------
+
+* `std/monotimes <monotimes.html>`_
+  The `monotimes` module implements monotonic timestamps.
+
+* `times <times.html>`_
+  The ``times`` module contains support for working with time.
 
 
 Generic Operating System Services
 ---------------------------------
 
+* `distros <distros.html>`_
+  This module implements the basics for OS distribution ("distro") detection
+  and the OS's native package manager.
+  Its primary purpose is to produce output for Nimble packages,
+  but it also contains the widely used **Distribution** enum
+  that is useful for writing platform specific code.
+
+* `dynlib <dynlib.html>`_
+  This module implements the ability to access symbols from shared libraries.
+
+* `marshal <marshal.html>`_
+  Contains procs for serialization and deseralization of arbitrary Nim
+  data structures.
+
+* `memfiles <memfiles.html>`_
+  This module provides support for memory mapped files (Posix's ``mmap``)
+  on the different operating systems.
+
 * `os <os.html>`_
   Basic operating system facilities like retrieving environment variables,
   reading command line arguments, working with directories, running shell
@@ -184,136 +225,119 @@ Generic Operating System Services
 * `osproc <osproc.html>`_
   Module for process communication beyond ``os.execShellCmd``.
 
-* `times <times.html>`_
-  The ``times`` module contains support for working with time.
-
-* `std/monotimes <monotimes.html>`_
-  The `monotimes` module implements monotonic timestamps.
-
-* `dynlib <dynlib.html>`_
-  This module implements the ability to access symbols from shared libraries.
-
 * `streams <streams.html>`_
   This module provides a stream interface and two implementations thereof:
   the `FileStream` and the `StringStream` which implement the stream
   interface for Nim file objects (`File`) and strings. Other modules
   may provide other implementations for this standard stream interface.
 
-* `marshal <marshal.html>`_
-  Contains procs for serialization and deseralization of arbitrary Nim
-  data structures.
-
 * `terminal <terminal.html>`_
   This module contains a few procedures to control the *terminal*
   (also called *console*). The implementation simply uses ANSI escape
   sequences and does not depend on any other module.
 
-* `memfiles <memfiles.html>`_
-  This module provides support for memory mapped files (Posix's ``mmap``)
-  on the different operating systems.
-
-* `asyncfile <asyncfile.html>`_
-  This module implements asynchronous file reading and writing using
-  ``asyncdispatch``.
-
-* `asyncstreams <asyncstreams.html>`_
-  This module provides `FutureStream` - a future that acts as a queue.
-
-* `distros <distros.html>`_
-  This module implements the basics for OS distribution ("distro") detection
-  and the OS's native package manager.
-  Its primary purpose is to produce output for Nimble packages,
-  but it also contains the widely used **Distribution** enum
-  that is useful for writing platform specific code.
-
-* `volatile <volatile.html>`_
-  This module contains code for generating volatile loads and stores,
-  which are useful in embedded and systems programming.
-
 
 Math libraries
 --------------
 
-* `math <math.html>`_
-  Mathematical operations like cosine, square root.
-
 * `complex <complex.html>`_
   This module implements complex numbers and their mathematical operations.
 
-* `rationals <rationals.html>`_
-  This module implements rational numbers and their mathematical operations.
-
 * `fenv <fenv.html>`_
   Floating-point environment. Handling of floating-point rounding and
   exceptions (overflow, zero-devide, etc.).
 
+* `math <math.html>`_
+  Mathematical operations like cosine, square root.
+
 * `mersenne <mersenne.html>`_
   Mersenne twister random number generator.
 
 * `random <random.html>`_
   Fast and tiny random number generator.
 
+* `rationals <rationals.html>`_
+  This module implements rational numbers and their mathematical operations.
+
 * `stats <stats.html>`_
   Statistical analysis
 
+
 Internet Protocols and Support
 ------------------------------
 
-* `cgi <cgi.html>`_
-  This module implements helpers for CGI applications.
-
-* `browsers <browsers.html>`_
-  This module implements procs for opening URLs with the user's default
-  browser.
-
-* `httpclient <httpclient.html>`_
-  This module implements a simple HTTP client which supports both synchronous
-  and asynchronous retrieval of web pages.
-
-* `smtp <smtp.html>`_
-  This module implement a simple SMTP client.
-
-* `cookies <cookies.html>`_
-  This module contains helper procs for parsing and generating cookies.
-
-* `mimetypes <mimetypes.html>`_
-  This module implements a mimetypes database.
-
-* `uri <uri.html>`_
-  This module provides functions for working with URIs.
-
 * `asyncdispatch <asyncdispatch.html>`_
   This module implements an asynchronous dispatcher for IO operations.
 
-* `asyncnet <asyncnet.html>`_
+* `asyncfile <asyncfile.html>`_
-  This module implements asynchronous sockets based on the ``asyncdispatch``
+  This module implements asynchronous file reading and writing using
+  ``asyncdispatch``.
+
+* `asyncftpclient <asyncftpclient.html>`_
+  This module implements an asynchronous FTP client using the ``asyncnet``
   module.
 
 * `asynchttpserver <asynchttpserver.html>`_
   This module implements an asynchronous HTTP server using the ``asyncnet``
   module.
 
-* `asyncftpclient <asyncftpclient.html>`_
+* `asyncnet <asyncnet.html>`_
-  This module implements an asynchronous FTP client using the ``asyncnet``
+  This module implements asynchronous sockets based on the ``asyncdispatch``
   module.
 
+* `asyncstreams <asyncstreams.html>`_
+  This module provides `FutureStream` - a future that acts as a queue.
+
+* `cgi <cgi.html>`_
+  This module implements helpers for CGI applications.
+
+* `cookies <cookies.html>`_
+  This module contains helper procs for parsing and generating cookies.
+
+* `httpclient <httpclient.html>`_
+  This module implements a simple HTTP client which supports both synchronous
+  and asynchronous retrieval of web pages.
+
+* `mimetypes <mimetypes.html>`_
+  This module implements a mimetypes database.
+
+* `nativesockets <nativesockets.html>`_
+  This module implements a low-level sockets API.
+
 * `net <net.html>`_
   This module implements a high-level sockets API. It replaces the
   ``sockets`` module.
 
-* `nativesockets <nativesockets.html>`_
-  This module implements a low-level sockets API.
-
 * `selectors <selectors.html>`_
   This module implements a selector API with backends specific to each OS.
   Currently epoll on Linux and select on other operating systems.
 
+* `smtp <smtp.html>`_
+  This module implement a simple SMTP client.
+
+* `uri <uri.html>`_
+  This module provides functions for working with URIs.
+
+
+Threading
+---------
+
+* `threadpool <threadpool.html>`_
+  Implements Nim's `spawn <manual.html#parallel-amp-spawn>`_.
+
 
 Parsers
 -------
 
-* `parseopt <parseopt.html>`_
+* `htmlparser <htmlparser.html>`_
-  The ``parseopt`` module implements a command line option parser.
+  This module parses an HTML document and creates its XML tree representation.
+
+* `json <json.html>`_
+  High performance JSON parser.
+
+* `lexbase <lexbase.html>`_
+  This is a low level module that implements an extremely efficient buffering
+  scheme for lexers and parsers. This is used by the diverse parsing modules.
 
 * `parsecfg <parsecfg.html>`_
   The ``parsecfg`` module implements a high performance configuration file
@@ -322,24 +346,24 @@ Parsers
   literals, raw string literals and triple quote string literals are supported
   as in the Nim programming language.
 
+* `parsecsv <parsecsv.html>`_
+  The ``parsecsv`` module implements a simple high performance CSV parser.
+
+* `parseopt <parseopt.html>`_
+  The ``parseopt`` module implements a command line option parser.
+
+* `parsesql <parsesql.html>`_
+  The ``parsesql`` module implements a simple high performance SQL parser.
+
 * `parsexml <parsexml.html>`_
   The ``parsexml`` module implements a simple high performance XML/HTML parser.
   The only encoding that is supported is UTF-8. The parser has been designed
   to be somewhat error correcting, so that even some "wild HTML" found on the
   Web can be parsed with it.
 
-* `parsecsv <parsecsv.html>`_
-  The ``parsecsv`` module implements a simple high performance CSV parser.
 
-* `parsesql <parsesql.html>`_
+Docutils
-  The ``parsesql`` module implements a simple high performance SQL parser.
+--------
-
-* `json <json.html>`_
-  High performance JSON parser.
-
-* `lexbase <lexbase.html>`_
-  This is a low level module that implements an extremely efficient buffering
-  scheme for lexers and parsers. This is used by the diverse parsing modules.
 
 * `packages/docutils/highlite <highlite.html>`_
   Source highlighter for programming or markup languages.  Currently
@@ -357,10 +381,6 @@ Parsers
 * `packages/docutils/rstgen <rstgen.html>`_
   This module implements a generator of HTML/Latex from reStructuredText.
 
-* `packages/docutils/sexp <sexp.html>`_
-  High performance sexp parser and generator, mainly for communication
-  with emacs.
-
 
 XML Processing
 --------------
@@ -372,16 +392,22 @@ XML Processing
 * `xmlparser <xmlparser.html>`_
   This module parses an XML document and creates its XML tree representation.
 
-* `htmlparser <htmlparser.html>`_
+
-  This module parses an HTML document and creates its XML tree representation.
+Generators
+----------
 
 * `htmlgen <htmlgen.html>`_
   This module implements a simple XML and HTML code
   generator. Each commonly used HTML tag has a corresponding macro
   that generates a string with its HTML representation.
 
-Cryptography and Hashing
+
-------------------------
+
+Hashing
+-------
+
+* `base64 <base64.html>`_
+  This module implements a base64 encoder and decoder.
 
 * `hashes <hashes.html>`_
   This module implements efficient computations of hash values for diverse
@@ -390,68 +416,60 @@ Cryptography and Hashing
 * `md5 <md5.html>`_
   This module implements the MD5 checksum algorithm.
 
-* `base64 <base64.html>`_
-  This module implements a base64 encoder and decoder.
-
-* `std/sha1 <sha1.html>`_
-  This module implements a sha1 encoder and decoder.
-
-
-Multimedia support
-------------------
-
-* `colors <colors.html>`_
-  This module implements color handling for Nim. It is used by
-  the ``graphics`` module.
-
-
-Miscellaneous
--------------
-
 * `oids <oids.html>`_
   An OID is a global ID that consists of a timestamp,
   a unique counter and a random value. This combination should suffice to
   produce a globally distributed unique ID. This implementation was extracted
   from the Mongodb interface and it thus binary compatible with a Mongo OID.
 
-* `endians <endians.html>`_
+* `std/sha1 <sha1.html>`_
-  This module contains helpers that deal with different byte orders.
+  This module implements a sha1 encoder and decoder.
 
-* `logging <logging.html>`_
-  This module implements a simple logger.
 
-* `options <options.html>`_
-  Types which encapsulate an optional value.
 
-* `sugar <sugar.html>`_
+Miscellaneous
-  This module implements nice syntactic sugar based on Nim's macro system.
+-------------
+
+* `browsers <browsers.html>`_
+  This module implements procs for opening URLs with the user's default
+  browser.
+
+* `colors <colors.html>`_
+  This module implements color handling for Nim. It is used by
+  the ``graphics`` module.
 
 * `coro <coro.html>`_
   This module implements experimental coroutines in Nim.
 
-* `unittest <unittest.html>`_
+* `logging <logging.html>`_
-  Implements a Unit testing DSL.
+  This module implements a simple logger.
 
 * `segfaults <segfaults.html>`_
   Turns access violations or segfaults into a ``NilAccessError`` exception.
 
+* `sugar <sugar.html>`_
+  This module implements nice syntactic sugar based on Nim's macro system.
+
+* `unittest <unittest.html>`_
+  Implements a Unit testing DSL.
+
 
 Modules for JS backend
 ----------------------
 
-* `dom <dom.html>`_
-  Declaration of the Document Object Model for the JS backend.
-
-* `jsffi <jsffi.html>`_
-  Types and macros for easier interaction with JavaScript.
-
 * `asyncjs <asyncjs.html>`_
   Types and macros for writing asynchronous procedures in JavaScript.
 
+* `dom <dom.html>`_
+  Declaration of the Document Object Model for the JS backend.
+
 * `jscore <jscore.html>`_
   Wrapper of core JavaScript functions. For most purposes you should be using
   the ``math``, ``json``, and ``times`` stdlib modules instead of this module.
 
+* `jsffi <jsffi.html>`_
+  Types and macros for easier interaction with JavaScript.
+
 
 Impure libraries
 ================
@@ -499,6 +517,8 @@ UNIX specific
 
 * `posix <posix.html>`_
   Contains a wrapper for the POSIX standard.
+* `linux <linux.html>`_
+  Contains a wrapper for Linux's APIs.
 
 
 Regular expressions
@@ -533,14 +553,3 @@ Network Programming and Internet Protocols
 
 * `openssl <openssl.html>`_
   Wrapper for OpenSSL.
-
-
-Nimble
-======
-
-Nimble is a package manager for the Nim programming language.
-For instructions on how to install Nimble packages see
-`its README <https://github.com/nim-lang/nimble#readme>`_.
-
-To see a list of Nimble's packages, check out `<https://nimble.directory/>`_
-or the `packages repo <https://github.com/nim-lang/packages>`_ on GitHub.