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Old 26th October 2008
corey_james corey_james is offline
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Default c programming - Modules

I'm in the process of planning an application which i intend on marketing and I'd like to implement modules that can be loaded dynamically into the application.

For example, someone buys the core system and wants to add ... say MP3 support, so they'd buy this module and install it.

How would something like this actually work ?

Would this be achieved using 'dlopen' ?
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Last edited by corey_james; 26th October 2008 at 09:36 AM.
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Old 26th October 2008
corey_james corey_james is offline
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Well, i have had a play and i think using dlopen and dlsym is the best way to go about this. Here's some examples if anyone is interested:

libtest.c
Code:
#include <stdio.h>
void testfunc() {

printf("Test plugin\n");
}
Compiled as follows:
gcc -fPIC -g -c -Wall libtest.c

main.c
Code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <dlfcn.h>

int main () {

void *handle = NULL;
void (*testlib)(void) = NULL;

handle = dlopen("./libtest.so" ,RTLD_LAZY);
testlib = dlsym(handle, "testfunc");

if ( testlib == NULL ) 
{
	printf("Error: %s \n", dlerror());
}
else 
{
	testlib();
}
}
compiled with: gcc main.c

making the library into a shared library ( required )

Code:
gcc -shared -Wl,-soname,libtest.so.1 -o libtest.so libtest.o -lc
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Old 30th October 2008
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mdh mdh is offline
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One thing to keep in mind is that dlfunc() isn't portable outside of the BSD realm. Creating modular code using dlopen() and friends is surprisingly easy. The man pages are good, which helps a lot, as well. Generally, the model used is thus:

dlopen() the module. If this succeeds, use dlfunc() or dlsym() (depending on whether portability matters) to find an initialization function. You may also want to have a structure for modules in which to store a pointer to a de-initialization function to be executed when a module is unloaded. Do this, then once everything's been successful, execute the initialization function.

The initialization function should call some function(s) in your code to add itself to arrays of whatever it wants - for example, with an http server, you may want to do something like:
Code:
module_register_handler(".php", mod_php_filehandler);
Where module_register_handler() inserts a directive that when a file ending in .php is requested, the function pointed to by the second argument - in this case, mod_php_filehandler() - shall be called.

The module_register_handler() function should insert that into a table, against which requests for files are checked. When that occurs, the function mod_php_filehandler() or any other handler, such as a module which just sends a file down the line with associated mime type or whatever, shall be called with the request environment (client info, URI path, environment variables, stdin data if POST or somesuch was used, etc) as an argument or arguments.

Of course, this is just one way to use it. Be creative.
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Old 6th November 2008
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nfries88 nfries88 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by corey_james View Post
Would this be achieved using 'dlopen' ?
Yes, and on windows it would be achieved with LoadLibrary, GetProcAddress, and FreeLibrary.
(Since it seems you plan to market this application I can only assume Windows is a target for you too)

The basic implementation is:
1) open the library (dlopen/LoadLibrary)
2) get the pointer to the function you want to get from the module, IE "filetype_handler" (dlsym/GetProcAddress)
3) use the function as needed
4) at shutdown or when the module is no longer needed, close the module (dlclose/FreeLibrary).
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