load_dll problem

[Alexandre Julliard]

Mike Hearn <m.hearn at signal.qinetiq.com> writes:

> Hmm, when was this problem last discussed? I'd like to read about it. I
> seem to recall something about C++ static initializers, which is one
> reason why you need this wrapper thing (to init winelib before the app
> starts), but what is this about intercepting variables?

The way we link functions is by creating an intermediate jump that we
can resolve ourselves. Obviously this doesn't work for variables,
there's no way to insert an extra indirection, so we would need to
work directly with the ELF tables, or else have the compiler generate
PE indirections for us.

> Is the problem with altering the GOT a matter of writing a parser, or
> figuring out which entries are variables, or something else? 

It's a matter of doing the ELF run-time linking ourselves, so that we
can use PE libraries to resolve imports. We may also need something at
link time so that the ELF linker can be tricked in believing the
variables exist. Basically it's a major piece of work, that I doubt
will be done soon, if ever.

Other possibilities include building as PE format, which should work
today, or using ELF linking throughout and giving up on native
libraries, which would still require a bit of work. The latter is
probably the best choice for Winelib, but since it's useless for the
binary emulator it's not really high priority.

-- 
Alexandre Julliard
julliard at winehq.com