GP32 dynamic shared objects

[baggy]

Hi all,

I originally posted this at the bottom of the post regarding Mr Spiv's Ericsson keyboard drivers but I guess that threads dead now so I started a new one with the post.

--snip ---

Can anyone think of a way of getting dynamic library support on the gp32. I think the chances of people writing games which include support for all the input devices are pretty slim, but if we had dso support then we could just define an API and we could do a different .so file for each type (ericsson keyboard , software keyboard etc).

Then you could copy the .so for your input device to a standard location on the smc and it would work with all games which used the api.

That said I haven't seen anything approaching dlopen() in the sdk docs, and I haven't got a clue how dynamic linkers actually work.

I'd be happy to do a driver for a software keyboard and port Mr Spiv's Ericsson driver if someone else knew how to construct the framework.

Anyone more knowledgeable on these matters care to comment on whether it could be done?

-- snip --


It would also be useful for things like media viewers which could open a different library for each type of media (jpegs, gifs etc) , but like I said getting it working would be waaaay over my head.

Please post post ideas below.

All the best,

Baggy

 

[wave]

I think dynamic libraries must be handled by the OS and the GP32 hasn't.

 

[generalnmx]

Don't think you can do a dll with the GP32...however, you can compile a lib or a straight object file.

 

[Rattboi]

This isn't possible *yet*.

It's true you'd need some kind of loader for this different kind of file, unless you'd like to link a loader into the front of each program <_<

I've been researching this for a while because there *are* a lot of advantages that come from it. Not only your example, but just imagine if SDL or the GP libs were a single DSO on your SMC card, instead of statically linked to each program? You know those first example programs everyone makes that are like 3 lines of code, but the libs bloat it to 100K? Those could be only 3-10k like it should be There are just endless possibilities with that kind of system. That's why you see it so popular in Windows and Linux programs.

 

[Rattboi]

Oh, btw, if you want to read some info about dynamic linking and loading for yourself, I found this page:

Dynamic Linking and Loading

Have fun!

 

[Don Miguel]

8(
my HDD is dead.. 8(

i hate it 8(

 

[baggy]

Thanks for the info everyone. I figured it would be tricky but I thought I'd ask anyway.

I'll post back if I find out any way of doing it.

Regards,

Baggy