Re: Windows and DLLs

[David Jeske <jeske home chat net>]

On Fri, Oct 02, 1998 at 01:34:23PM +0200, luther@maxime.u-strasbg.fr wrote:
> > > /home/joe/myfiles/thisdir/this.is.an.executable
> > > or by :
> > 
> > Try that if the program has datafiles and was compiled to find them in
> > /usr/local/this_program/.
> 

> that has nothing to do with the os or anything, you can make
> programs with fixed paths compiled in under any operating system, it
> is just bad programming practice, if you open a file at
> a:soandso/file.cfg it will be the same problem if the file is not
> where expected.

Can you explain to me exactly what the method is for writing programs
on UNIX with location independence? In my experience, everyone invents
their own hack. Some (like httpd) make you specify the full path to
the config file on the command line, and then you can put the paths in
the config file. Some rely on environment variables. This is not
location independence, this is more annoying configuration stuff that
I don't want to have to relearn for every app.

We need a standard way for an app to find the full path to it's
binary, and be guaranteed to get it. Then it should be able to get all
datafiles relative to that path. Better yet, it should just "ask" for
datafiles with relative paths without knowing where they are. Having
the app ask for some 'gnome path' and then going relative from that
isn't good enough, because that dosn't work for me. (users need to be
able to install apps, and I need to be able to have multiple versions
of the same app coexisting)

This is what the wrapper (and the associated API) will help fix.

-- 
David Jeske (N9LCA) + http://www.chat.net/~jeske/ + jeske@chat.net