Re: Windows and DLLs

[Nils Philippsen <nils wombat dialup fht-esslingen de>]

Hi,

I hate to reply to myself, but...

On Sat, 3 Oct 1998, Nils Philippsen wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Oct 1998, David Jeske wrote:
> [snip]
> > 
> > Can you explain to me exactly what the method is for writing programs
> > on UNIX with location independence? In my experience, everyone invents
> > their own hack. Some (like httpd) make you specify the full path to
> > the config file on the command line, and then you can put the paths in
> > the config file. Some rely on environment variables. This is not
> > location independence, this is more annoying configuration stuff that
> > I don't want to have to relearn for every app.
> > 
> > We need a standard way for an app to find the full path to it's
> 
> This simply is not really possible -- think of hard links. the only thing
> you might get would be an inode number and a device which wouldn't help.

We would need a syscall for this, the kernel should be able to figure out
the path which actually was used. But this a) would be a problem for users
of commercial unices, b) at least for Linux this would have to wait, due
to the code freeze Linus announced (don't know about the other free 
unices, excuse me for my ignorance) and c) I don't know how this should be
coded, I'm not a kernel hacker.

> 
> > binary, and be guaranteed to get it. Then it should be able to get all
> > datafiles relative to that path. Better yet, it should just "ask" for
> > datafiles with relative paths without knowing where they are. Having

Relative paths would only work if the current working directory is the
directory where the binary is placed. No problem for DOS, big problem for
real multi user systems where people are used to starting programs from
"where they currently are in the file system, let the shell figure it out
what to start".

Bye,
Nils
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nils Philippsen                  @college: nils@rhlx01.rz.fht-esslingen.de
Vogelsangstrasse 115             @home:    nils@wombat.dialup.fht-esslingen.de
D 70197 Stuttgart                phone:    +49-711-6599405
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Maybe I should patent stupidity so every lawyer will owe me BIG !!
(mpare@cadvision.com)