Re: gnat3.04a1 on Win95: linking a DLL

[Ted Dennison <dennison@escmail.orl.mmc.com>]

Terry J. Westley wrote:
> 
> Newbie on Windows 95 searching for info on how to "link" a GNAT Ada program
> with a DLL.  Actually, I want to know how to tell the linker NOT to attempt
> to resolve a reference to a symbol I know to be in the DLL.
> 
> After searching Lycos, DejaNews, the GCC and GNAT docs, I can not find
> anything on this subject.  Lots of stuff on how to create a DLL with GNAT,
> but not on how to link with an existing one.  My last idea was that it
> was a variation on pragma Interface, but couldn't find anything in
> sem_prag.adb.

I know this story well, as I went through it myself about a month ago. Here
are your options -

  o  Purchase a Microsoft Linker. One comes with Visaul C++ (about $300). 
     Install it, then rebuild LabTek's gnat.

  o  Search the net for a Win32 lib*.a file made from that DLL. The gnu linker
     uses lib*.a files, not *.DLL files. If its a Micro$oft DLL, you are probably
     out of luck.

  o  Create a lib*.a from the DLL. There are detailed instructions on how to
     do this in the GnuWin32 mailing list archives
     ( http://www.cygnus.com/ml/gnu-win32/ ). It is not a simple process, and
     is not even fully automated (unless you have access to a Linux machine).

     If anyone has a better method for making the lib's from DLL's, please 
     speak up!


Out of curiosity, which DLL do you want?
-- 
T.E.D.          
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