NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/comp/lang/c/12661

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-22 | 1.9 KB

Xref: sparky comp.lang.c:12661 comp.unix.questions:10303
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.unix.questions
Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.cso.uiuc.edu!murphy!fortony
From: [e-mail]
Subject: user-extensible functions under C and UNIX
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Originator: fortony@murphy
Summary: the author wonders how to do something slightly grotesque
Sender: [e-mail]
Followup-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Roue Text and Steel
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 23:24:40 GMT
Keywords: unix, ar
Lines: 35


Greets,

I'm trying to write a program which accepts char *functionname
and then calls the appropriate function, which would be
contained in blahblah.a.  The end result of this would be to
let users write their own functions, add them to blahblah.a,
and then call them from within an editor.

Assume that the parameters for all the functions are constant.
Assume also that the functions can be forced to comply with
whatever makes this problem easier in terms of naming
conventions, number per object file, etc.
Assume also that the editor must not be recompiled or relinked
with each added function.

Under LISP, this would be reasonably simple.  Even under UNIX
and C, it's reasonably simple iff I write it to be completely
nonportable (using system() and somesuch).  But the trick is
that I want the solution to be as portably standard-c as possible.

Please don't view this as an attempt to get the net to write
my code; I'm just wondering if there's a standardly accepted
way of converting pointer to char into pointer to function
named by string pointed to by pointer to char.

For the extremely curious, this is part of an attempt to make
an extensible editor which doesn't rely on an internal language.

Thanks in advance for any posts, e-mails, etc. on the subject.

Felix
--
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Felix Sebastian Ortony    [e-mail]