Re: package body functionality

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <9f14b8$r4v$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic says...
>
>Possible exception: If the package is a shared library or in a distributed
>environment. I'm not sure what the language rules are, but I'd suspect that
>a DLL would not re-elaborate every time another program started up and
>called for its services. Maybe under some conditions (separate data spaces)

My understanding is that DLL's keep a count of how many programs are using them,
and get automagicly unloaded when the count goes down to 0. You'd want it to
elaborate once for the first call that loads it in, then not again until the
next call after it unloads.

However, DLL's have their own special entry point as well. I suspect what Ada
DLL's have to do is implement that call (exported with the right linkage of
course) to call the standard Ada elaboration entry point. Perhaps someone who
has done this can comment.

Anyway, I wouldn't really call this an "exception". Its just that in this case
the "program" in question is the DLL itself, not its clients. It works if you
hold your head the right way. :-)

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