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From:	sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu (Charles Sandmann)
Message-Id:	<10112202206.AA14757@clio.rice.edu>
Subject:	Re: RFC - Dynamic loading
To:	djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Date:	Thu, 20 Dec 2001 16:06:01 -0600 (CST)
In-Reply-To:	<20011220124507.A26821@kendall.sfbr.org> from "JT Williams" at Dec 20, 2001 12:45:07 PM
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> What do you guys mean by these existing packages being too `heavy'?
> Too much code to add to libc?  Is the standard dlopen interface
> just overkill for djgpp?

The current dxeload interface adds about 300 bytes to an executable
(and since it's linked to load the emu387.dxe actually costs nothing).

dlxload adds about 40Kb to the size of an image (it needs modifications
to work with C programs).

dxe2 adds about 20Kb to the size of an image.

This would be added to each and every image built.

Since my primary goal is to support seamless loading of external calls,
dlopen is a very bulky way to do this (you don't have to add calls
to dlopen to images to use a DLL on windows, you just link to it).

> [Charles W Sandmann]
> -: I first looked at the two DLL type packages on Simtel.  Both of them
> -: have nice features, but are a little heavy for what I am looking for.
> 
> [Tim Van Holder]
> -: My local version of the now defunct DLX package added support for this,
> -: which worked fine for gcc 2.95.x, but needs reworking for gcc3.  I've
> -: just started looking into it again, and have gotten tentative approval
> -: from NanoSoft, Inc. (who wrote DLX) to fork off my own version of the
> -: library for further development.
> -: I'll certainly agree that as it stands, it's a bit heavy for libc use
> -: though.

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