Dynamic D Library

[Jarrett Billingsley]

On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 4:44 PM, teo<teo.ubuntu at yahoo.com> wrote:

>>  For two, there is *no problem*
>> with creating D libraries on any platform other than Windows, and it
>> is entirely through Windows' fault that it has the problems it does
>> with DLLs.
>>
> Well, let us assume that you can create dynamic libraries in D and you need to include in each of them Phobos (later maybe just the D Runtime). What is the benefit of that? Can you imagine all your nice dynamic libraries (DLLs, SOs, etc.) written in D and all of them including a huge “payload”? Wouldn't it be better just a simple library only containing the stuff you need?

I don't think you're getting it.

ON WINDOWS, DLLs are not allowed to have unresolved externals.  So if
you create a DLL in D, yes, Phobos will be linked in.  THERE IS
NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT THAT.  It's a limitation on the way
DLLs work.

ON EVERY OTHER OPERATING SYSTEM (Linux, Unix, OSX, *whatever*), shared
libraries CAN have unresolved externals, so Phobos *does not* have to
be included in the shared libraries.  Shared libraries ALREADY work
the way you expect them to on every OS besides Windows.

The ONLY way to solve the problem with DLLs on Windows is to not use
DLLs.  Java solves it by not using any platform-dependent libraries,
instead using its own .class files.  This is *exactly* what DDL does.

So, I'm not sure what you see as the problem here.  DDL works fine on
Windows.  Use it.