Re: [Caml-list] ocamlopt and *using* DLLs

[Robert Roessler <roessler@rftp.com>]

Nicolas Cannasse wrote:

> The main problem is that your DLL need to call Ocaml API, which it is linked
> with.
> 
> In bytecode there is no problem since the whole API is inside ocamlrun.dll
> so your DLL and ocamlrun.exe will simply use this API dll together.
> In native compilation however there is no more ocamlrun.dll, since the API
> is staticly linked into your executable. That means that your DLL that was
> working in bytecode will load ocamlrun.dll and call it while your executable
> is calling staticly linked API. This will result quite quickly in a crash
> since ocamlrun.dll is not initialized correctly.
> 
> The only possible way to get the DLL working is to patch it so it loads its
> API inside your.exe and not inside ocamlrun.dll. But then you will need a
> different version of the DLL for each application (!). It would be nice if
> OCaml could provide the equivalent of ocamlrun.dll for the native
> compilation mode.

Thanks for the explanation of the key difference between the models,
Nicolas!

I have this running just fine now, and it is not really as grim as you
make it sound above. :)  Since my DLL really only exists to provide an
interface between OCaml and C-land, I just followed the model used by
LablGTK, and build that interface one of two ways: "dllscintilla.dll"
for bytecode, and "libscintilla.lib" for native.

Robert Roessler
roessler@rftp.com
http://www.rftp.com