NAME

       XSLoader - Dynamically load C libraries into Perl code

VERSION

       Version 0.16

SYNOPSIS

           package YourPackage;
           require XSLoader;

           XSLoader::load();

DESCRIPTION

       This module defines a standard simplified interface to the dynamic linking mechanisms
       available on many platforms.  Its primary purpose is to implement cheap automatic dynamic
       loading of Perl modules.

       For a more complicated interface, see DynaLoader.  Many (most) features of "DynaLoader"
       are not implemented in "XSLoader", like for example the "dl_load_flags", not honored by
       "XSLoader".

   Migration from "DynaLoader"
       A typical module using DynaLoader starts like this:

           package YourPackage;
           require DynaLoader;

           our @ISA = qw( OnePackage OtherPackage DynaLoader );
           our $VERSION = '0.01';
           bootstrap YourPackage $VERSION;

       Change this to

           package YourPackage;
           use XSLoader;

           our @ISA = qw( OnePackage OtherPackage );
           our $VERSION = '0.01';
           XSLoader::load 'YourPackage', $VERSION;

       In other words: replace "require DynaLoader" by "use XSLoader", remove "DynaLoader" from
       @ISA, change "bootstrap" by "XSLoader::load".  Do not forget to quote the name of your
       package on the "XSLoader::load" line, and add comma (",") before the arguments ($VERSION
       above).

       Of course, if @ISA contained only "DynaLoader", there is no need to have the @ISA
       assignment at all; moreover, if instead of "our" one uses the more backward-compatible

           use vars qw($VERSION @ISA);

       one can remove this reference to @ISA together with the @ISA assignment.

       If no $VERSION was specified on the "bootstrap" line, the last line becomes

           XSLoader::load 'YourPackage';

       If the call to "load" is from "YourPackage", then that can be further simplified to

           XSLoader::load();

       as "load" will use "caller" to determine the package.

   Backward compatible boilerplate
       If you want to have your cake and eat it too, you need a more complicated boilerplate.

           package YourPackage;
           use vars qw($VERSION @ISA);

           @ISA = qw( OnePackage OtherPackage );
           $VERSION = '0.01';
           eval {
              require XSLoader;
              XSLoader::load('YourPackage', $VERSION);
              1;
           } or do {
              require DynaLoader;
              push @ISA, 'DynaLoader';
              bootstrap YourPackage $VERSION;
           };

       The parentheses about "XSLoader::load()" arguments are needed since we replaced "use
       XSLoader" by "require", so the compiler does not know that a function "XSLoader::load()"
       is present.

       This boilerplate uses the low-overhead "XSLoader" if present; if used with an antique Perl
       which has no "XSLoader", it falls back to using "DynaLoader".

Order of initialization: early load()
       Skip this section if the XSUB functions are supposed to be called from other modules only;
       read it only if you call your XSUBs from the code in your module, or have a "BOOT:"
       section in your XS file (see "The BOOT: Keyword" in perlxs).  What is described here is
       equally applicable to the DynaLoader interface.

       A sufficiently complicated module using XS would have both Perl code (defined in
       YourPackage.pm) and XS code (defined in YourPackage.xs).  If this Perl code makes calls
       into this XS code, and/or this XS code makes calls to the Perl code, one should be careful
       with the order of initialization.

       The call to "XSLoader::load()" (or "bootstrap()") calls the module's bootstrap code. For
       modules build by xsubpp (nearly all modules) this has three side effects:

       •   A sanity check is done to ensure that the versions of the .pm and the (compiled) .xs
           parts are compatible. If $VERSION was specified, this is used for the check. If not
           specified, it defaults to "$XS_VERSION // $VERSION" (in the module's namespace)

       •   the XSUBs are made accessible from Perl

       •   if a "BOOT:" section was present in the .xs file, the code there is called.

       Consequently, if the code in the .pm file makes calls to these XSUBs, it is convenient to
       have XSUBs installed before the Perl code is defined; for example, this makes prototypes
       for XSUBs visible to this Perl code.  Alternatively, if the "BOOT:" section makes calls to
       Perl functions (or uses Perl variables) defined in the .pm file, they must be defined
       prior to the call to "XSLoader::load()" (or "bootstrap()").

       The first situation being much more frequent, it makes sense to rewrite the boilerplate as

           package YourPackage;
           use XSLoader;
           use vars qw($VERSION @ISA);

           BEGIN {
              @ISA = qw( OnePackage OtherPackage );
              $VERSION = '0.01';

              # Put Perl code used in the BOOT: section here

              XSLoader::load 'YourPackage', $VERSION;
           }

           # Put Perl code making calls into XSUBs here

   The most hairy case
       If the interdependence of your "BOOT:" section and Perl code is more complicated than this
       (e.g., the "BOOT:" section makes calls to Perl functions which make calls to XSUBs with
       prototypes), get rid of the "BOOT:" section altogether.  Replace it with a function
       "onBOOT()", and call it like this:

           package YourPackage;
           use XSLoader;
           use vars qw($VERSION @ISA);

           BEGIN {
              @ISA = qw( OnePackage OtherPackage );
              $VERSION = '0.01';
              XSLoader::load 'YourPackage', $VERSION;
           }

           # Put Perl code used in onBOOT() function here; calls to XSUBs are
           # prototype-checked.

           onBOOT;

           # Put Perl initialization code assuming that XS is initialized here

DIAGNOSTICS

       "Can't find '%s' symbol in %s"
           (F) The bootstrap symbol could not be found in the extension module.

       "Can't load '%s' for module %s: %s"
           (F) The loading or initialisation of the extension module failed.  The detailed error
           follows.

       "Undefined symbols present after loading %s: %s"
           (W) As the message says, some symbols stay undefined although the extension module was
           correctly loaded and initialised. The list of undefined symbols follows.

LIMITATIONS

       To reduce the overhead as much as possible, only one possible location is checked to find
       the extension DLL (this location is where "make install" would put the DLL).  If not
       found, the search for the DLL is transparently delegated to "DynaLoader", which looks for
       the DLL along the @INC list.

       In particular, this is applicable to the structure of @INC used for testing not-yet-
       installed extensions.  This means that running uninstalled extensions may have much more
       overhead than running the same extensions after "make install".

KNOWN BUGS

       The new simpler way to call "XSLoader::load()" with no arguments at all does not work on
       Perl 5.8.4 and 5.8.5.

BUGS

       Please report any bugs or feature requests via the perlbug(1) utility.

SEE ALSO

       DynaLoader

AUTHORS

       Ilya Zakharevich originally extracted "XSLoader" from "DynaLoader".

       CPAN version is currently maintained by Sebastien Aperghis-Tramoni
       <sebastien@aperghis.net>.

       Previous maintainer was Michael G Schwern <schwern@pobox.com>.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

       Copyright (C) 1990-2011 by Larry Wall and others.

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.