Re: using C dll in Perl

Hi,

Are you using gcc compiler or Microsoft compiler ? I’ll assume you’re using an MS compiler.

As with C, you’ll need a header file that defines the structures of the ‘deal’ and ‘futureTricks’ structs and also defines (prototypes) the SolveBoard function.
Let’s call that header ‘my.h’ and the dll ‘my.dll’ .

In the Inline::C code, you’d include my.h, and link to my.dll’s import library (which I’ll call ‘mylib.lib’).
The Inline::C code would also wrap the SolveBoard function.

So your Inline::C code would have something like:

use Inline C => Config =>
      BUILD_NOISY => 1,
      LIBS => ‘-L/C:/full/path/to/import/library –lmylib’,
      INC => ‘-IC:/full/path/to/header’;

use Inline C => <<’EOC’;

#include <my.h>

int wrap_SolveBoard(/* the args you want to pass to wrap_SolveBoard */) {
      /* code that sets up the values you need to pass to SolveBoard */
     return SolveBoard(/* args */);
}

EOC

If you’re using gcc, you have the option of not needing an import library. Instead you could replace the LIBS entry in the above Config section with:

    MYEXTLIB => ‘C:/full/path/to/my.dll’,

But for MS compilers you need to link to the import lib.
If you don’t have an import lib it can be created from the dll.

Cheers,
Rob

From: [email protected] 
I want to use a function such as following.  Dll file is available. I would like to know what I have to do to be able to use any of these functions. (I will fill in the details of the input needed. What I cannot figure out is what the header file would be and what other things I need to do within the perl program so that the DLL is gracefully accessed)

 

extern "C" __declspec(dllimport) int __stdcall SolveBoard(struct deal, int target,  

    int solutions,  int mode, struct futureTricks *futp, int threadIndex);

 

thanks in advance and regards,

 

Prakash