[Vm-beginners] Interfacing with a C dll on Windows

[David T. Lewis]

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 09:22:10AM -0700, Sean P. DeNigris wrote:
> I'm working with an SDK that works like this:
> - A running application let's you supply your own C DLL, which imports a
> proprietary one
> - During the course of the application running, various events will cause
> pre-defined hooks to be called in the custom dll
> 
> So, as always, I'm /mostly/ unwilling to code in C (unless it's inside a
> Smalltalk VM, ha ha). I want to do most of the processing in Pharo. And, I
> haven't done anything on Windows in years. How (if possible) do I directly
> integrate the custom dll, running inside their app, with a Squeak VM? I'd
> love to just use the dll as glue to communicate between the application and
> my image...

I do not understand the question. Are you referring to some actual commercial
or proprietary application that you want to have interacting with your
image? Or is the "application" something that you are doing in Pharo?
Is the SDK something that exists and that you are trying to use, or are
you trying to create an SDK that someone else would be able to use?

If you are just trying to call functions in a DLL from an application
in Pharo, then you will probably want to use FFI for this.

Dave