From help-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Tue Dec 12 15:54:14 2000
Subject: Re: mkoctfile
From: Andy Adler <adler at freenet dot carleton dot ca>
To: help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
cc: help-octave <help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 16:58:27 -0500 (EST)

On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Mumit Khan wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, John W. Eaton wrote:
> 
> > I don't think anyone has yet done the work to make dynamically linked
> > functions work with Octave on Windows systems.  If this is not
> > correct, would someone who uses Windows and Octave and dynamically
> > linked functions please provide the details so that it can be made to
> > work by default in the Octave distributions?
> 
> I remember building .oct files on Windows after mucking around with the
> list of libraries to link with and so on, but beware that the size is 
> going to be *huge* even for a the smallest .oct file due to static 
> linking of all the Octave libraries. The solution is to build Octave 
> libraries as DLLs under windows, but that's much easier said that done. 
> I did at one point, way in the past, made *most* of the changes needed, 
> but it wasn't quite all there. The trouble with Windows DLLs is that you 
> have *explicitly* import/export DLL variables (the functions can be 
> transparently handled via import libraries), and that requires lots of 
> painstaking work when dealing with source base that wasn't designed for 
> it from the get go (which is most things written on and for Unix).

I was thinking about this recently, and I wondered if it
would be possible to use the approach used in the Perl
module Win32::API

http://search.cpan.org/doc/ACALPINI/Win32-API-0.20/API.html

This allows you to load and call arbirary functions
in windows dlls from perl. I looked at the source, and it doesn't
seem to be that hairy, although it has some assember in it.

In fact, the documentation states:
"All the credits go to Andrea Frosini for the neat assembler trick that
makes this thing work."

Mumit, are you familiar with this approach. Is it a 
possiblity.

_______________________________________
Andy Adler,                adler at ncf dot ca



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