# The Support Kit

The Support Kit contains classes and utilities that any application can take advantage of--regardless of what kind of application it is or what it does. Among other things, it includes:

- The `BArchivable` protocol for objects that can archive themselves and be instantiated from their archives.

- The `BList` class, a container for keeping track of a number of data items, typically object pointers.

- The `BLocker` and `BAutolock` classes for implementing locking mechanisms.

- The `BDataIO` and `BPositionIO` protocols for objects that can be read and written, and the `BMemoryIO` and `BMallocIO` classes that implement the protocols.

- The `BFlattenable` protocol for objects that can write themselves to a flattened representation.

- Debugging tools, including the `BStopWatch` class.

- Common defined types and constants, such as `int32` and `int64`.

- The error codes for all the software kits.

- Type codes for identifying data types in messages, attributes, and resources.

- Utility functions such as `atomic_add()`, `write_16_swap()`, and `convert_to_utf8()`.

The Be Book, in lovely HTML, for BeOS Release 3.

Copyright © 1998 Be, Inc. All rights reserved.

Last modified March 26, 1998.