[fpc-pascal]Interface-only units (was: shared libraries interface)

[Florian Klaempfl]

At 12:41 02.08.2002 +0200, you wrote:


>On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Jonas Maebe wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Full_Name wrote:
> >
> > > One other point.. surely the interface is there just for the
> > > convenience of the developer - like a C header file.
> >
> > No, it's mainly to guarantee portability between different compiler
> > versions. The problem is that the ppu files are compiler versino
> > dependent, so if you want to distribute a unit without the source, you
> > have to re-distribute it every time a new compiler version is released (if
> > the ppu format has changed at least), which is not very nice. With the
> > interface-only units, you distribute an object file and an interface and
> > people can use the unit, no matter which versio of the compiler they use
> > (in theory at least :)
>
>I don't see the use of such a construct:
>A. If the internal naming conventions of the compiler change,
>    chances are that the object file is useless anyway.
>B. If the internal alignment rules for constants, sets, records and
>    I don't know what change, then you're stuck as well.

If the system unit gets a new type/var/proc/...or even if you
reorder the source code of the system unit the indizies for
some system unit ppu entries change => ppus compiled with older systems
unit doesn't work anymore though neiter A. nor B. apply :)

>Since with a new compiler version, you are not guaranteed that these
>things have not changed, this rather defeats the purpose of the unit as
>you will be forced to redistribute anyway.
>So I see no real use for a 'interface-only' unit.
>What is more, you can easily make o an 'interface-only unit' now. The
>easy way is to have all functions in a separate object file and create
>a unit that just contains the needed definitions.
>This is already possible as follows:

But it doesn't work flawless with objects and classes etc. I think
and you've to maintain to sets of interfaces or you've to use
lot of ifdefs...