Best way to write plug-ins? - comp.os.linux.development.apps

Message from discussion Best way to write plug-ins?

Peter Mattis

More options Jul 16 1995, 3:00 am

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps

From: p...@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Peter Mattis)

Date: 1995/07/16

Subject: Re: Best way to write plug-ins?

  Reply to author
  |
  Forward
  | Print
  | View thread
  | Show original
  | Report this message
  | Find messages by this author
  

In article <3u7amh$...@felix.cc.gatech.edu>,

Jeff Garzik <jgar...@cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
>I am writing an application for a my company, and I am interested in
>making it very easy to hook into internal program data (like a
>PhotoShop Plug-In, if you know what one of those is). What would be
>the best way to do this?

>I can only think of two ways to do it right offhand, but I would like
>to avoid the second (call me a purist):

>* Allocate shared memory to a child process, which is either an
> a.out or ELF binary.
>* Write the data out to a temporary file, or pipe, which the child
> executable then reads.

>Is there a better way?

Well, I'm currently writing an application that uses plug-in modules. The
technique I use is to use pipes to handle communication and to use shared
memory to pass large data structures back and forth. (Well, I guess they
aren't really "passed" when using shared memory, now are they. :)

It is, however, not very easy to hook into internal program data. I set up
a fairly simple message passing system to handle requests for data. It works
fine for my purposes, but it wouldn't easily expand to allow access to
arbitrary data structures in the main application.

Mail me if you want more specifics.

Peter Mattis
p...@soda.csua.berkeley.edu

Reply to author Forward