Preliminaries

• What This Module Does - An overview of the kinds module's role and abilities.

• How To Include This Module - What to do to make use of the kinds module in a new command-line tool.

Chapter 1: Starting Up

• Kinds Module - Setting up the use of this module.

Chapter 2: Kinds

• Kinds - To build tree structures which represent Inform's universe of kinds.

• Familiar Kinds - To recognise certain kind names as familiar built-in ones.

• The Lattice of Kinds - Placing a partial order on kinds according to whether one conforms to another.

• Describing Kinds - Translating kinds to and from textual descriptions.

• Using Kinds - To determine the characteristics of different kinds, enabling them to be used in practice.

Chapter 3: Arithmetic

• Dimensions - To keep a small database indicating the physical dimensions of numerical values, and how they combine: for instance, allowing us to specify that a length times a length is an area.

• Floating-Point Values - To cope with promotions from integer to floating-point arithmetic.

• Scaled Arithmetic Values - To manage the scalings and offsets used when storing arithmetic values at run-time, and/or when using scaled units to refer to them.

Chapter 4: Constructors

• A Brief Guide to Neptune - A manual for the mini-language used in Neptune files.

• Neptune Files - To read in details of built-in kind constructors from so-called Neptune files, setting them up ready for use.

• Neptune Syntax - To parse individual commands from Neptune files.

• Macros - Neptune supports named macros, though they are only lists of kind commands.

• Star Templates - Allowing Neptune files to generate additional source text.

• Kind Commands - To apply a given command to a given kind constructor.

• Kind Constructors - The mechanism by which Inform records the characteristics of different kinds.