Types and Views

The public reference begins with roles, because the rest of the contract is hard to read if ownership and borrowing are blurry.

Public type roles

Surface	Ownership status	Contract reading
`bit_block<Bits>`	Owning	Fixed-width storage object with explicit size, layout, and word-level identity.
`bit_view`	Borrowed mutable	Mutable window over existing storage; does not imply ownership transfer.
`const_bit_view`	Borrowed read-only	Read-only window used for inspection, comparison, and algorithm input.
`<bitcal/bitcal.hpp>`	Stable entry point	The single supported include seam for the public surface.

Readers should be able to infer these rules without guessing:

ownership lives with bit_block<Bits>;
borrowing lives with bit_view and const_bit_view;
borrowed views are normal inputs to algorithms, not second-class adapters;
include advice stays simple: include <bitcal/bitcal.hpp> unless you are working on internals.

Width is part of the public story, because the redesign is intentionally fixed-width oriented.
bit_block<Bits> keeps width-appropriate storage alignment rather than forcing one x86-wide alignment onto every width.
Borrowing must be documented clearly enough that aliasing and mutability questions can be answered at the reference layer.
equals() compares full view extents: different word_count() values are not equal, even if the shorter prefix matches.
Detail headers may exist, but they are not automatically public commitments.

This page does not promise: