CS-Library provides utility routines for use in application program development to support:
Datatype conversion
Arithmetic operations
Character-set conversion
Datetime operations
Sort-order operations
Localized error messages
CS-Library also includes routines to allocate and deallocate CS-Library structures.
Although you can write a standalone CS-Library application, CS-Library’s primary function is to provide common utility routines to Client-Library and Server-Library applications.
Because Client-Library and Server-Library programs require a context structure, which can only be allocated using CS-Library, all Client-Library and Server-Library programs include at least two calls to CS-Library—one to allocate a CS_CONTEXT and one to deallocate it.
A context structure contains information about an application’s runtime environment, or “context.” For more information about the CS_CONTEXT structure, see “Structures”.