Copyright (c) 1992,1993,1995,1996, Jens-Uwe Mager, Helios Software GmbH
Not derived from licensed software.
Permission is granted to freely use, copy, modify, and redistribute
this software, provided that the author is not construed to be liable
for any results of using the software, alterations are clearly marked
as such, and this notice is not modified.
libdl.a
-------
This is an emulation library to emulate the SunOS/System V.4 functions
to access the runtime linker. The functions are emulated by using the
AIX load() function and by reading the .loader section of the loaded
module to find the exports. The to be loaded module should be linked as
follows (if using AIX 3):
cc -o module.so -bM:SRE -bE:module.exp -e _nostart $(OBJS)
For AIX 4:
cc -o module.so -bM:SRE -bE:module.exp -bnoentry $(OBJS)
If you want to reference symbols from the main part of the program in a
loaded module, you will have to link against the export file of the
main part:
cc -o main -bE:main.exp $(MAIN_OBJS)
cc -o module.so -bM:SRE -bI:main.exp -bE:module.exp -bnoentry $(OBJS)
Note that you explicitely have to specify what functions are supposed
to be accessible from your loaded modules, this is different from
SunOS/System V.4 where any global is automatically exported. If you
want to export all globals, the following script might be of help:
#!/bin/sh
/usr/ucb/nm -g $* | awk '$2 == "B" || $2 == "D" { print $3 }'
The module export file contains the symbols to be exported. Because
this library uses the loader section, the final module.so file can be
stripped. C++ users should build their shared objects using the script
makeC++SharedLib (part of the IBM C++ compiler), this will make sure
that constructors and destructors for static and global objects will be
called upon loading and unloading the module. GNU C++ users should use
the -shared option to g++ to link the shared object:
g++ -o module.so -shared $(OBJS)
If the shared object does have permissions for anybody, the shared
object will be loaded into the shared library segment and it will stay
there even if the main application terminates. If you rebuild your
shared object after a bugfix and you want to make sure that you really
get the newest version you will have to use the "slibclean" command
before starting the application again to garbage collect the shared
library segment. If the performance utilities (bosperf) are installed
you can use the following command to see what shared objects are
loaded:
/usr/lpp/bosperf/genkld | sort | uniq
For easier debugging you can avoid loading the shared object into the
shared library segment alltogether by removing permissions for others
from the module.so file:
chmod o-rwx module.so
This will ensure you get a fresh copy of the shared object for every
dlopen() call which is loaded into the application's data segment.
Usage
-----
void *dlopen(const char *path, int mode);
This routine loads the module pointed to by path and reads its export
table. If the path does not contain a '/' character, dlopen will search
for the module using the LIBPATH environment variable. It returns an
opaque handle to the module or NULL on error. The mode parameter can be
either RTLD_LAZY (for lazy function binding) or RTLD_NOW for immediate
function binding. The AIX implementation currently does treat RTLD_NOW
the same as RTLD_LAZY. The flag RTLD_GLOBAL might be or'ed into the
mode parameter to allow loaded modules to bind to global variables or
functions in other loaded modules loaded by dlopen(). If RTLD_GLOBAL is
not specified, only globals from the main part of the executable or
shared libraries are used to look for undefined symbols in loaded
modules.
void *dlsym(void *handle, const char *symbol);
This routine searches for the symbol in the module referred to by
handle and returns its address. If the symbol could not be found, the
function returns NULL. The return value must be casted to a proper
function pointer before it can be used. SunOS/System V.4 allows handle
to be a NULL pointer to refer to the module the call is made from, this
is not implemented.
int dlclose(void *handle);
This routine unloads the module referred to by the handle and disposes
of any local storage. this function returns -1 on failure. Any function
pointers obtained through dlsym() should be considered invalid after
closing a module.
As AIX caches shared objects in the shared library segment, function
pointers obtained through dlsym() might still work even though the
module has been unloaded. This can introduce subtle bugs that will
segment fault later if AIX garbage collects or immediatly on
SunOS/System V.4 as the text segment is unmapped.
char *dlerror(void);
This routine can be used to retrieve a text message describing the most
recent error that occured on on of the above routines. This function
returns NULL if there is no error information.
Initialization and termination handlers
---------------------------------------
The emulation provides for an initialization and a termination
handler. The dlfcn.h file contains a structure declaration named
dl_info with following members:
void (*init)(void);
void (*fini)(void);
The init function is called upon first referencing the library. The
fini function is called at dlclose() time or when the process exits.
The module should declare a variable named dl_info that contains this
structure which must be exported. These functions correspond to the
documented _init() and _fini() functions of SunOS 4.x, but these are
appearently not implemented in SunOS. When using SunOS 5.0, these
correspond to #pragma init and #pragma fini respectively. At the same
time any static or global C++ object's constructors or destructors will
be called.
BUGS
----
Please note that there is currently a problem with implicitely loaded
shared C++ libaries: if you refer to a shared C++ library from a loaded
module that is not yet used by the main program, the dlopen() emulator
does not notice this and does not call the static constructors for the
implicitely loaded library. This can be easily demonstrated by
referencing the C++ standard streams from a loaded module if the main
program is a plain C program.
Jens-Uwe Mager
HELIOS Software GmbH
Lavesstr. 80
30159 Hannover
Germany
Phone: +49 511 36482-0
FAX: +49 511 36482-69
AppleLink: helios.de/jum
Internet: jum@helios.de
Revison History
---------------
SCCS/s.dlfcn.h:
D 1.4 95/04/25 09:36:52 jum 4 3 00018/00004/00028
MRs:
COMMENTS:
added RTLD_GLOBAL, include and C++ guards
D 1.3 92/12/27 20:58:32 jum 3 2 00001/00001/00031
MRs:
COMMENTS:
we always have prototypes on RS/6000
D 1.2 92/08/16 17:45:11 jum 2 1 00009/00000/00023
MRs:
COMMENTS:
added dl_info structure to implement initialize and terminate functions
D 1.1 92/08/02 18:08:45 jum 1 0 00023/00000/00000
MRs:
COMMENTS:
Erstellungsdatum und -uhrzeit 92/08/02 18:08:45 von jum
SCCS/s.dlfcn.c:
D 1.11 96/04/10 20:12:51 jum 13 12 00037/00000/00533
MRs:
COMMENTS:
Integrated the changes from John W. Eaton <jwe@bevo.che.wisc.edu> to initialize
g++ generated shared objects.
D 1.10 96/02/15 17:42:44 jum 12 10 00012/00007/00521
MRs:
COMMENTS:
the C++ constructor and destructor chains are now called properly for either
xlC 2 or xlC 3 (CSet++).
D 1.9 95/09/22 11:09:38 markus 10 9 00001/00008/00527
MRs:
COMMENTS:
Fix version number
D 1.8 95/09/22 10:14:34 markus 9 8 00008/00001/00527
MRs:
COMMENTS:
Added version number for dl lib
D 1.7 95/08/14 19:08:38 jum 8 6 00026/00004/00502
MRs:
COMMENTS:
Integrated the fixes from Kirk Benell (kirk@rsinc.com) to allow loading of
shared objects generated under AIX 4. Fixed bug that symbols with exactly
8 characters would use garbage characters from the following symbol value.
D 1.6 95/04/25 09:38:03 jum 6 5 00046/00006/00460
MRs:
COMMENTS:
added handling of C++ static constructors and destructors, added RTLD_GLOBAL to bind against other loaded modules
D 1.5 93/02/14 20:14:17 jum 5 4 00002/00000/00464
MRs:
COMMENTS:
added path to dlopen error message to make clear where there error occured.
D 1.4 93/01/03 19:13:56 jum 4 3 00061/00005/00403
MRs:
COMMENTS:
to allow calling symbols in the main module call load with L_NOAUTODEFER and
do a loadbind later with the main module.
D 1.3 92/12/27 20:59:55 jum 3 2 00066/00008/00342
MRs:
COMMENTS:
added search by L_GETINFO if module got loaded by LIBPATH
D 1.2 92/08/16 17:45:43 jum 2 1 00074/00006/00276
MRs:
COMMENTS:
implemented initialize and terminate functions, added reference counting to avoid multiple loads of the same library
D 1.1 92/08/02 18:08:45 jum 1 0 00282/00000/00000
MRs:
COMMENTS:
Erstellungsdatum und -uhrzeit 92/08/02 18:08:45 von jum
a43dbe2565