Setup: Windows and a starkit with ffidl and a utility DLL in it. Ffidl is the good old one that can be downloaded from
elf.org.
If I run the starkit with ActiveTcl, ffidl can load its payload DLL directly from the kit, no need to copy it out of it. The version of ffidl that I use is the one that uses LoadLibraryA. Has ActiveTcl installed a hook on LoadLibraryA? If so, would it be a good idea to adopt this method in non-ActiveState versions of Tcl?
Open end: Until now I haven't managed to successfully compile ffidl myself. It's a bit tricky, because I have managed to compile libffi and ffidl, but running a simple test gives a bad result, therefore this is a question that I cannot answer myself at the moment:
Tcl_LoadFile is publicly accessible and ffidl offers an option to use it (officially not under Windows, at least the Makefile says so). If ffidl would be compiled with Tcl_LoadFile, it would reduce the extra burden of the temporary DLL copy for users of ffidl. Is that possible?
And a general question: How would anybody who is unable or just unlucky to compile a binary extension like ffidl locate a ready-made extension? Add some kind of recipe to kbs or BAWT? In the past I had some luck by using vanillawish from the AndroWish project as a one-stop repository (need tkpath? unwrap it from a vanillawish!), but ffidl is not in there, at least not for Windows.