[fpc-devel] Dynamically Loading Libraries

[Jonas Maebe]

Joost van der Sluis wrote on do, 12 nov 2009:

> On Wed, 2009-11-11 at 13:21 +0100, Jonas Maebe wrote:
>> On 10 Nov 2009, at 23:24, Jeppe Johansen wrote:
>>
>> > What about saying that
>> >   procedure proc; external 'libname' name 'proc';
>> > denotes a function that's dynamically loaded implicitly, while
>> >   procedure proc; external name 'proc';
>> > denotes a static linked function.
>> >
>> > In my opinion that seems like the only logical solution. Explicit
>> > dynamic loading will ofcourse still be possible, but you wouldn't
>> > need tools or lots of ifdefs
>> >
>> > I'm not aware of how well it would work on Mac platforms, but I'm
>> > mostly certain most GNU/Linux and BSD's, and Windows has support for
>> > implicit dynamic linking in the executable formats
>>
>> What do you mean by "implicit dynamic linking"?
>>
>> > This is ofcourse a solution that would require modification of the
>> > compiler, but I think in the long run that it'll make alot of things
>> > more comprehensible
>>
>> It would also require modifications to several existing header
>> translations, and depending on what "implicit dynamic linking" means,
>> it would also make it impossible to use the same unit for static and
>> for dynamic linking, while this is currently possible. It would also
>> break backwards compatibility.
>
> Offcourse not. For existing headers nothing changes. For new ones one
> can add the 'lazydynamic'  keyword or something like that to the
> definition.

The mail I was reacting to, as quoted above, said:

***
What about saying that    procedure proc; external 'libname' name 'proc';
denotes a function that's dynamically loaded implicitly, while
    procedure proc; external name 'proc';
denotes a static linked function.

In my opinion that seems like the only logical solution. Explicit  
dynamic loading will ofcourse still be possible, but you wouldn't need  
tools or lots of ifdefs
***

That would break backwards compatibility (it would no longer be  
possible to use a unit with the first syntax for using a statically  
linked library). You appear to be talking about some different proposal.


Jonas

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