NAME

       dynload_overview - Dynamic Loading of Extension Nodes When Coin tries to get hold of a
       node type object (SoType) for a class based on the name string of the node type, it will -
       if no such node type has been initialized yet - scan the file system for a dynamically
       loadable extension node with that given name. This can be completely disabled by setting
       the environment variable COIN_NO_SOTYPE_DYNLOAD to a positive integer value, new from Coin
       v2.5.0.

       On UNIX, extensions nodes are regular .so files. On Win32, extension nodes are built as
       DLLs. On Mac OS X systems, extension nodes are built as .dylib files. (Note: The extension
       nodes have to be built using the flag '-dynamiclib', not '-bundle'.)

       Whether the dynamically loadable objects should be named with or without the 'lib' prefix
       is optional. Both schemes will work.

       People don't usually program in a way so that they instantiate new nodes through the node
       class' SoType object, but that is the way nodes are created when model files are loaded.
       This means that for all Coin applications that load model files, the custom extension
       nodes will automatically be supported for the model files without you having to modify
       their source code and rebuild the applications.

       See ftp://ftp.coin3d.org/pub/coin/src/dynloadsample.tar.gz for an example using two
       dynamically loadable extension nodes. You only use an examiner viewer to view the two
       extension nodes in action.

       Only a limited set of C++ compilers are supported as of yet. This is because, to
       initialize the extension node, it is necessary to know something about how the C++
       compiler mangles the initClass symbol. If we don't know that, there is no way to locate
       the initClass method in the library, which means the extension node can not make itself
       known to the type system.

       If your C++ compiler is not supported, the source file to add support for a new compiler
       in is src/misc/cppmangle.icc. It is fairly trivial to add support for new compilers, but
       if you don't understand how, just ask us about it. Patches with support for new compilers
       are of course very welcome.

       See Also:
           SoType

       Since:
           Coin 2.0