EMBOSS includes, for certain AJAX and NUCLEUS library files, applications which illustrate the correct usage of each function in that library. Currently these "demonstration applications" are kept in the myembossdemo EMBASSY package and have the prefix "demo". There is, of course, an ACD file for each application. For example the following files illustrate the use of the string library:

This is a work in progress; demonstration applications are only available for a few of the library files and the coverage of the available functions is by no means comprehensive in all cases. The file demostring.c is the most complete and gives an idea of what is to come.

Compiling the demonstration applications. If you open the two Makefile.am files (in the src and ACD directories) and find the entries for demostring you'll notice it occurs in the check_PROGRAMS section of the "src" Makefile.am file. This section is reserved for programs that are included for testing, are undergoing active development or have yet to be fully tested, or which should be considered incomplete for some other reason e.g. they are undocumented or quality assurance test data are not yet available for them. The demo* applications are there, reflecting their "demonstration" status.

To compile the "check_PROGRAMS" applications, type:

from the applications directory. This will produce all the "check_PROGRAMS" applications, including the demonstration applications.

You should now have a working demostring application. The source code and ACD file should contain sufficient comments to be comprehensible. To get a feel for the scope of the string library run demostring and inspect the output and the corresponding source code for each function call in turn. If it's not obvious what each function is doing, or to test your understanding, edit the source code, recompile and run demostring again.