[Axiom-developer] Re: navigating Axiom's library

[root]

the database files aren't derived from the +++ comments

when the spad compiler runs it creates an NRLIB directory,
one per domain/category/package in the file.

Among the files in the NRLIB directory there is an index.KAF file

KAF files are random access files. The first item in the file
is a number that is the number of bytes into the file you need
to seek to find the association list (alist) which is a list of
all of the "keys" in the file (all the things you can look up).

you can simulate this in emacs. 
  1) open an index.KAF file. 
  2) find the integer (say 2345)
  3) type control-u 2345 control-f
this will position you at the first character of the alist (a parenthesis)

the alist contains a set of key-value pairs. 
to find the abbreviation for the domain, for instance,
you use assoc to find the "abbreviation" entry
and the last thing in the value list is again a number
this number is an index into the file
if you seek to that location you'll find the abbreviation.

the DAASE files have the same structure except that there is a
bit of compression applied (since the DAASE files had to fit on
a single diskette (ah, history, don't you love it?))

the DAASE files are collections of the compiler information
kept in the NRLIB/index.KAF files.

t