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https://github.com/darealshinji/gendlopen

gendlopen is a tool that generates code to dynamically load functions using the dlopen() or LoadLibrary() API from minimal input
https://github.com/darealshinji/gendlopen

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gendlopen is a tool that generates code to dynamically load functions using the dlopen() or LoadLibrary() API from minimal input

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README

          

Gendlopen is a small tool intended to help with the creation of code that
dynamically loads shared libraries.
It takes text files with C prototype declarations as input and creates C or C++
header files as output.

This is still experimental and the main goal is to simply try out how much can
be automized and find out how useful it is.

Features:
* no build dependencies other than a C/C++ compiler and make
* can generate code for C and C++
* win32 API `LoadLibraryEx()` and POSIX `dlopen()`
* wide and narrow characters on win32 API
* option to automatically load library and symbols

Limitations:
* auto-loading only works on functions ¹
* auto-loading does not work on functions with variable arguments ²

¹ I recommend using your own get/set wrapper functions to auto-load objects

² You can however replace a prototype such as `int myprintf(const char *format, ...)`
with one that has a fixed number of arguments: `int myprintf(const char *format, int arg1, const char *arg2, float arg3)`

Input format
------------

Here's how the input text format must be:

* all symbols that should be loaded must be listed as C-style prototypes, ending on semi-colon (;)
* comments and preprocessor lines are ignored
* line-breaks are treated as spaces
* you can set some options on a line beginning with `%option`,
for example `%option format=c++ prefix=mydl library=libfoo.so`

You can create such a file with GCC:
`echo '#include "foobar.h"' | gcc -xc -c - -o /dev/null -aux-info aux.txt`

Alternatively the input text can be a Clang AST file:
`clang -Xclang -ast-dump foobar.h > foo.txt`

It's recommended to use the options `-S` or `-P` if you want to parse a Clang AST file or
GCC generated prototype list.

Example
-------

Let's assume you want to load `int foobar_foo(foo_t *f)` and `void foobar_bar(bar_t b)` from `foo.so`.
First create a text file with the prototypes, each function prototype ending on a semicolon:

``` C
int foobar_foo(foo_t *f);
void foobar_bar(bar_t b);
```

Create a header file `load_foo.h` from the input:
`gendlopen foo.txt -o load_foo.h`

Include `load_foo.h` it in your source file and use the provided functions to load the symbols:
``` C
/* load library and symbols */
if (!gdo_load_lib_name("foo.so") || !gdo_load_symbols())
{
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", gdo_last_error());
gdo_free_lib();
return 1;
}

/* your code */
foobar_foo(x);
foobar_bar(y);

/* free library */
gdo_free_lib();
```

Or in C++ using the `gdo::dl` class:
`gendlopen foo.txt -format=c++ -o load_foo.hpp`

``` C++
/* load library; resources are freed by the class d'tor */
gdo::dl loader("foo.so");

if (!loader.load_lib_and_symbols()) {
std::cerr << loader.error() << std::endl;
return 1;
}

/* your code */
foobar_foo(x);
foobar_bar(y);
```

You can find more information in the files from the `examples` and `tests`
directories, in the comments of the template files in `src/templates` as well as
in the generated output files.

Compiling
---------

Meson build system is used:
``` sh
meson setup builddir
meson compile -C builddir

# or with tests and examples enabled
meson setup -Denable_tests=true -Denable_examples=true builddir
meson compile -C builddir
meson test -C builddir
```

Cross-compiling with MinGW:
``` sh
meson setup --cross-file cross-files/x86_64-w64-mingw32.ini builddir
meson compile -C builddir
```

Cross-compiling with clang-cl/LLD:
```sh
# set your clang version
CLANGVER=19
export PATH="$PWD/cross-files/clang-${CLANGVER}-bin:$PATH"

meson setup --cross-file cross-files/x86_64-windows-msvc-clang-${CLANGVER}.ini builddir
meson compile -C builddir
```

Here are all steps to setup a Visual Studio installation for clang-cl.
```sh
# tools to help download VS on Linux
git clone https://github.com/mstorsjo/msvc-wine
cd msvc-wine
./vsdownload.py --dest msvc
./install.sh msvc
cd ..

# set up environment variables
BIN="$PWD/msvc-wine/msvc/bin/x64" . msvc-wine/msvcenv-native.sh

# set your clang version
CLANGVER=19
export PATH="$PWD/cross-files/clang-${CLANGVER}-bin:$PATH"

meson setup --cross-file cross-files/x86_64-windows-msvc-clang-${CLANGVER}.ini builddir
meson compile -C builddir
```

If you want to build on Windows using only `cl` and `link`:
``` sh
cl -W3 -O2 -EHsc -std:c++latest -Isrc -c src/*.cpp
cl -W3 -O2 -Isrc -c src/lex.yy.c
link *.obj -release -out:gendlopen.exe
```