[Vm-dev] plugin location

Ian Piumarta piumarta at speakeasy.net
Thu Aug 27 02:16:42 UTC 2009


Does anyone use the plugin mechanism to load libraries that are not  
plugins on Unix?  Or to override just one or two of the installed  
ones from a user directory?

I'm thinking of simplifying the search strategy (which is indeed  
broken w.r.t. overriding installed plugins as Subbu points out) along  
with all the junk related to probing for a zillion prefixes and  
suffixes.  Unlike libtool, CMake manages to build loadable modules  
with predictable 'lib*.so' names regardless of the platform.  That,  
combined with a launch script that can add a -plugins option to the  
VM args, suggests it ought to be possible to find the plugin  
precisely on the first attempt, without having to search at all.

The advantage is vastly simpler logic that is completely predictable.

The disadvantage is that it will not be possible to subvert the  
plugin mechanism to load system libraries, and it will not be  
possible to override the installed plugins with a single plugin built  
in a different directory.  Would either of these be a noticeable loss?

Cheers,
Ian



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