<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO8859-1"?>
<!--  

   $Id$ 
   This file is part of the FPC documentation. 
   Copyright (C) 1997, by Michael Van Canneyt 
 
   The FPC documentation is free text; you can redistribute it and/or 
   modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License as 
   published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the 
   License, or (at your option) any later version. 
 
   The FPC Documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, 
   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 
   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU 
   Library General Public License for more details. 
 
   You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public 
   License along with the FPC documentation; see the file COPYING.LIB.  If not, 
   write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, 
   Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. 
 -->
<fpdoc-descriptions>
<package name="rtl">
<module name="dynlibs">
<short>Cross-platform support for dynamically loadable libraries</short>
<descr>
<p>
The <file>Dynlibs</file> unit provides support for dynamically loading
shared libraries. It is available only on those platforms that support
shared libraries. The functionality available here may only be a part of
the functionality available on each separate platform, in the interest of
portability.
</p>
<p>
On unix platforms, using this unit will cause the program to be linked to
the C library, as most shared libraries are implemented in C and the
dynamical linker too.
</p>
</descr>

<!-- alias type Visibility: default -->
<element name="TLibHandle">
<short>Library handle type</short>
<descr>
<var>TLibHandle</var> should be considered an opaque type. It is defined
differently on various platforms. The definition shown here depends on the
platform for which the documentation was generated.
</descr>
<seealso>
<link id="LoadLibrary"/>
<link id="UnloadLibrary"/>
</seealso>
</element>

<!-- constant Visibility: default -->
<element name="NilHandle">
<short>Correctly typed Nil handle - returned on error by <link id="LoadLibrary"/></short>
</element>

<!-- function Visibility: default -->
<element name="LoadLibrary">
<short>Load a dynamic library and return a handle to it.</short>
<descr>
<p>
<var>LoadLibrary</var> loads a dynamic library in file <var>Name</var> 
and returns a handle to it. If the library cannot be loaded, 
<link id="NilHandle"/> is returned.
</p>
<p>
No assumptions should be made about the location of the loaded library if a
relative pathname is specified. The behaviour is dependent on the platform.
Therefore it is best to specify an absolute pathname if possible.
</p>
</descr>
<errors>
On error, <link id="NilHandle"/> is returned.
</errors>
<seealso>
<link id="UnloadLibrary"/>
<link id="GetProcedureAddress"/>
</seealso>
</element>

<!-- function Visibility: default -->
<element name="GetProcedureAddress">
<short>Get the address of a procedure or symbol in a dynamic library.</short>
<descr>
<p>
<var>GetProcedureAddress</var> returns a pointer to the location in memory
of the symbol <var>ProcName</var> in the dynamically loaded library
specified by it's handle <var>lib</var>.  If the symbol cannot be found or
the handle is invalid, <var>Nil</var> is returned.
</p>
<p>
On Windows, only an exported  procedure or
function can be searched this way. On Unix platforms the location of any
exported symbol can be retrieved this way.
</p>
</descr>
<errors>
If the symbol cannot be found, <var>Nil</var> is returned.
</errors>
<seealso>
<link id="LoadLibrary"/> 
<link id="UnLoadLibrary"/> 
</seealso>
</element>

<!-- function Visibility: default -->
<element name="UnloadLibrary">
<short>Unload a previously loaded library</short>
<descr>
<var>UnloadLibrary</var> unloads a previously loaded library (specified by
the handle <var>lib</var>). The call returns <var>True</var> if succesful,
<var>False</var> otherwisa.
</descr>
<errors>
On error, <var>False</var> is returned.
</errors>
<seealso>
<link id="LoadLibrary"/> 
<link id="GetProcedureAddress"/>
</seealso>
</element>

<!-- function Visibility: default -->
<element name="FreeLibrary">
<short>For compatibility with Delphi/Windows: Unload a library</short>
<descr>
<var>FreeLibrary</var> provides the same functionality as <link
id="UnloadLibrary"/>, and is provided for compatibility with Delphi.
</descr>
<seealso>
<link id="UnloadLibrary"/>
</seealso>
</element>

<!-- function Visibility: default -->
<element name="GetProcAddress">
<short>For compatibility with Delphi/Windows: Get the address of a procedure</short>
<descr>
<var>GetProcAddress</var> provides the same functionality as <link
id="GetProcedureAddress"/>, and is provided for compatibility with Delphi.
</descr>
<seealso>
<link id="GetProcedureAddress"/>
</seealso>
</element>

</module> <!-- dynlibs -->
</package>
</fpdoc-descriptions>
