[Spread-users] shared libs

[Mark Anacker]

I saw that.  That takes care of building the libs on Linux, but there still
needs to be some work for Windows.  It should be fairly simple - declare an
API spec like this:

#ifdef ARCH_PC_WIN95
  #if defined(DLL_EXPORT)
    #define DLL_API     __declspec( dllexport )    // export
  #else
    #define DLL_API     __declspec( dllimport )
  #endif
#else
  #define DLL_API
#endif

then in sp_func.h:

DLL_API
int     SP_join( mailbox mbox, const char *group );

That should do it.  Of course it needs another project added to the MSVC
workspace to build as a DLL.   That way you get both .lib and .dll.
 
I've shipped products with plug-ins done this way - same code running on
Win, Linux, and Solaris.  

> If you look at the Linux makefile you will notice it already has a
> 'undocumented' target to build shared libraries. This is something we have
> talked about, but havn't done yet because of some of the tricky
> cross-platform issues, and the added complexity of forward/backwards
> compatibility with shared libraries in addition to client-server
> protocols.
> 
> If you have suggestions on a good way to approach compatibility I'd be
> interested in hearing your thoughts.
>