RE: DLLs under Linux

[Rick Genter <RGenter@ibasis.net>]

>>>
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Lucas [mailto:klucas@atlan-tech.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 1999 10:12 AM
To: linuxgames@sunsite.auc.dk
Subject: Re: DLLs under Linux


>BTW: Does anyone know if MacOS has similar features?
>
>I might be prepared to support such a portability
>layer if I could find someone to do the MacOS code.

Yes it does. Basically you have a file with CODE resources in it. They're
just
like other resources like icons and so on, they're run by the same mechanism
so
they only get loaded when you actually use them and so on. In fact, because
you
have numbered resources of the type, you can
have thousands of code fragments in each "DLL" and only load up the
fragments
you need (kind of like a meta-DLL).
<<<

CODE resources aren't the same thing; there's no symbol capability.
Basically a CODE resource has a single entry point and no (simple) provision
for things like global variables.

Plus, CODE resources are 68K only. The PowerPC uses Code Fragments (see my
previous e-mail), and if you really want to develop for the 68K (which has
been obsolete for 5.5 years now), there is a 68K version of the Code
Fragment manager.

>>>
There's support for doing stuff with the code fragments in the OS (I don't
recall exactly. Find someone with Inside Macintosh and borrow the relevant
volume). At a former job we used them (as is standard in the mac world) as
plug-ins: the benefit is that the plug-in is a single file. It's easy for
the
user to administer, they just drop it in a folder... and it contains the
code,
the icons, the windows, the strings, everything the plug-in needs. It's very
neat.
<<<

Agreed. The two-fork architecture on the Macintosh is very useful.