              Astronomical Library for Win32 (EXPERIMENTAL RELEASE)
              =====================================================

Robert B. Denny
30-Jul-96

This is a first cut at a Win32 dynamic link library (DLL) containing a wide
variety of astronomical functions. Virtually all of the code was lifted from
the 'xephem' package for Unix, then edited to get rid of the 100 or so compiler
warnings given by the Visual C++ compiler. I added Win32-specific date/time
support, replacing the Unix code originally used in xephem.

My goal was to produce a DLL suitable for use from Visual Basic 4 and of course
C/C++ (or any other language that can call into Win32 DLL). Included in this 
release:

astro32.dll        The DLL itself
astro32.lib        Import library for using the DLL from C/C++, etc.
astro32.h          C header file with function prototypes
astro32.bas        VB4 interface module
astro32.txt        This document

The "documentation" of each function is contained in the VB4 interface file 
astro32.bas. I simply lifted the comments out of the various xephem modules.
It is terse, but it should be sufficient for an experienced programmer to 
use.

NOTE TO VB PROGRAMMERS: Strings returned by the library need to be handled
the same way as strings returned from other (e.g., Win32) DLL functions.
Declare a large enough string beforehand, then use Trim$ to extract the 
actual string from the "buffer" string:

  Dim buf As String * 255
  Dim timstr As String

  fmt_sexa(buf, Now, 4, 3600)
  timstr = Trim$(buf)

Please send comments, bug reports, etc. to me at rdenny@dc3.com. Please don't
ask me for programming support, I have a demanding day job and my down-time
is precious to me.

  -- Robert B. Denny <rdenny@dc3.com>
