Re: DLL library (Was: [boost] Re: additional boost libraries?)

From: Mattias Flodin (flodin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-07-24 20:29:00

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:49:22 +0400, Vladimir Prus <ghost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> static imported_function<void()>   apiFunc( "ApiFunc", "OSLib" );

Couldn't find a nice point in the thread at which to insert this
comment, so I'll just spit it out: Since we have both the name of the
function and the function type, and given that a lib such as this
should provide a platform-independent interface, would it be useful if
the library automatically mangled the name according to the type?

Pros:
 * Type mismatches in arguments etc will be caught.
 * Possible to export multiple overloads of the same function name.
 * In the event that the imported library cannot be changed to use
extern "C", it is still possible to import the function without
resorting to platform-specific mangling in the function name string.

Cons:
 * May cause problems if multiple mangling schemes exist on a single
(OS) platform.
 * Not all mangling schemes are documented well or provide an API to
perform the mangling.
 * Some (most likely insignificant) run-time and code-size overhead.

/Mattias