Re: load and use a ".o" file?

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@acm.org>]

j-anthony@rcn.com (Jon S. Anthony) writes:

> Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@acm.org> writes:
> 
> > But I'd still like to understand what the linking process implied by
> > (compile 'foo). As far as I can see, it must do the equivalent of
> > Windows DLL or Unix so.
> 
> No, this is part of the underlying introspective environment.  It is
> actually much simpler than the contortions involved in DLL/so type
> stuff.  It is also fine grained - a function at a time or even a
> functions symbol at a time.

Well, ok. I don't have a DLL manual handy. Fine-grained would be nice.

Maybe sometime I'll find the time to read up on Lisp implementations.

I suspect lambda binding, which is very dynamic, actually simplifies
the issue of dynamic code loading.

> In CL you don't need an explaination of the mechanism unless you are
> _implementing_ a Common Lisp.  

Ok. I'm interested in the implementation details.

> For the user, you don't need to do anything other than (compile-file
> ...) (load ...) to get all the resources in native compiled form
> "linked" in and ready to use. Or for interactive work, just (compile
> 'your-foo-here). That's it. A pleasent thing indeed.

Right. In VxWorks, you get almost the same convenience, except you
have to do the compile on the host, and execute on the target.

-- 
-- Stephe