Information hierarchy

Hi,

as I'm attracted by the idea of a java-client for linuxcnc I continued the work and got signals and led working.
On function checking I found out, that field "enabled" from JOINT_STAT behaves different than expected.
I thought, that field would reflect, whether a machine has certain axis or not.
With axis as master, I found out. that the enabled state switches at turning machine on or off, so what's the difference between signal "machine_on" and joint.enabled?

I could parse the ini-file by myself, but what's the leading information?
The axis are defined in display section as geometry and in traj section as coordinates and last not least each joint and each axis has its own section.

Which information wins? Where can I know from, if a machine has certain axis or not?
Just in case, that the different informations are not synchronized / don't match ...

joint.enable can be used to stop a A B C axis as not needed for 3Axius work
mashine enable is a general Switch for the internal as well as external use

Thank you Andy,

that information helps!