RE: PATCH mingw32 PE dlltool: Use internal name in import files.

["Dave Korn" <dk at artimi dot com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: binutils-owner On Behalf Of Aaron W. LaFramboise
> Sent: 29 June 2004 06:18

> I don't think this is right.  After checking, the MS tools do not seem
> to do this.
> 
> Can someone explain to me what internal_name is supposed to mean?  I
> can't find it documented anywhere what exactly its meaning is!
> 
> EXPORTS
> name = internal_name
> 
> What does internal_name represent?  Does it even do anything? 
>  While it
> is carried from input .def to output .def, it does not appear 
> to be put
> into either output import libraries or output .exp's.

  According to MSDN, this construct allows you to create an exported
function 'name' that corresponds to an actual function 'internal_name' in
the .dll; that is, 'internal_name' is the real function in the code and
'name' is the externally-visible alias that callers link against, that you
can look up with GetProcAddress, etc, etc.

> I notice that Mumit Khan added an option --add-stdcall-alias 
> to dlltool,
> but how can this possibly do anything if aliases do not seem 
> to do anything?

  Ah, that'll be something to do with the name decoration, won't it?  It's
not normal for plain old C symbols to get mangled, but when you use the
stdcall calling convention, M$' tools decorate the name with '@nnn', where
nnn is the number of bytes of stack arguments the function takes.  IIRC the
--add-stdcall-alias just means that for each symbol with the '@nnn' postfix,
you also get an equivalent undecorated symbol generated, to make linking
against callers that don't understand M$ stdcall name decoration that little
bit easier.


    cheers, 
      DaveK
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