libovoln

Libovoln is a hypothetical software library intended to illustrate generic programming concepts. It provides a collection of utilities and abstractions for manipulating data of arbitrary types without committing to a specific type at compile time or runtime. The name derives from the Czech word libovolný, meaning arbitrary or any.

Design goals include type-agnostic interfaces, safety through constraints or runtime checks, and minimal runtime overhead. The library emphasizes decoupling between algorithms and data representations, enabling code reuse across different type families. In language-agnostic discussions, libovoln serves as a model for how generic utilities can be structured.

Core features typically associated with libovoln encompass generic containers that can hold values of any type, adapters for custom types, a suite of algorithms (such as sort, map, reduce, filter) that operate on arbitrary sequences, and facilities for serialization and interoperability between languages.

In practice, libovoln is described in academic and educational contexts rather than as a concrete project. It is used to illustrate concepts such as type erasure, polymorphism, and the balance between compile-time specialization and runtime flexibility.

See also: generic programming, templates, generics, type erasure, polymorphism, interoperability.