The Essential Tools Module requires the selection of an RWCString (and associated RWWString) implementation. In addition, two macros may be set governing whether to enforce the use of four-digit years and to override the default RWZone class settings with system settings.

The Essential Tools Module provides two implementations of RWCString and RWWString: RWStandardCString based on std::string and RWCopyOnWriteCString built using the Copy-on-Write idiom. Your selection should be governed by the requirements of your applications, as described here.

The default is to use RWStandardCString (with RWStandardWString). RWCString and RWWString respectively become aliases for the selected classes.

For more information, see the section “Performance Considerations” in the Essential Tools Module User’s Guide.

Enabling the RW_CENTURY_REQD macro causes a debug assertion in debug mode or an exception in release mode if a non-four-digit year is entered. This is useful mainly for debugging. The default setting is no.