2 '\" Copyright (c) 1995-1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
4 '\" See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and redistribution
5 '\" of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES.
7 '\" RCS: @(#) $Id: load.n,v 1.7 2002/07/01 18:24:39 jenglish Exp $
9 '\" The definitions below are for supplemental macros used in Tcl/Tk
12 '\" .AP type name in/out ?indent?
13 '\" Start paragraph describing an argument to a library procedure.
14 '\" type is type of argument (int, etc.), in/out is either "in", "out",
15 '\" or "in/out" to describe whether procedure reads or modifies arg,
16 '\" and indent is equivalent to second arg of .IP (shouldn't ever be
17 '\" needed; use .AS below instead)
20 '\" Give maximum sizes of arguments for setting tab stops. Type and
21 '\" name are examples of largest possible arguments that will be passed
22 '\" to .AP later. If args are omitted, default tab stops are used.
25 '\" Start box enclosure. From here until next .BE, everything will be
26 '\" enclosed in one large box.
29 '\" End of box enclosure.
32 '\" Begin code excerpt.
37 '\" .VS ?version? ?br?
38 '\" Begin vertical sidebar, for use in marking newly-changed parts
39 '\" of man pages. The first argument is ignored and used for recording
40 '\" the version when the .VS was added, so that the sidebars can be
41 '\" found and removed when they reach a certain age. If another argument
42 '\" is present, then a line break is forced before starting the sidebar.
45 '\" End of vertical sidebar.
48 '\" Begin an indented unfilled display.
51 '\" End of indented unfilled display.
54 '\" Start of list of standard options for a Tk widget. The
55 '\" options follow on successive lines, in four columns separated
59 '\" End of list of standard options for a Tk widget.
61 '\" .OP cmdName dbName dbClass
62 '\" Start of description of a specific option. cmdName gives the
63 '\" option's name as specified in the class command, dbName gives
64 '\" the option's name in the option database, and dbClass gives
65 '\" the option's class in the option database.
68 '\" Print arg1 underlined, then print arg2 normally.
70 '\" RCS: @(#) $Id: man.macros,v 1.4 2000/08/25 06:18:32 ericm Exp $
72 '\" # Set up traps and other miscellaneous stuff for Tcl/Tk man pages.
76 '\" # Start an argument description
80 . ie !"\\$2"" .TP \\n()Cu
85 \&\\$1 \\fI\\$2\\fP (\\$3)
98 '\" # define tabbing values for .AP
101 .if !"\\$1"" .nr )A \\w'\\$1'u+3n
104 .if !"\\$2"" .nr )B \\w'\\$2'u+\\n()Au+3n
105 .nr )C \\n()Bu+\\w'(in/out)'u+2n
107 .AS Tcl_Interp Tcl_CreateInterp in/out
108 '\" # BS - start boxed text
109 '\" # ^y = starting y location
117 .if n \l'\\n(.lu\(ul'
120 '\" # BE - end boxed text (draw box now)
125 .ie n \l'\\n(^lu\(ul'
127 .\" Draw four-sided box normally, but don't draw top of
128 .\" box if the box started on an earlier page.
130 \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\l'\\n(^lu+3n\(ul'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\l'|0u-1.5n\(ul'
133 \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\h'\\n(^lu+3n'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\l'|0u-1.5n\(ul'
140 '\" # VS - start vertical sidebar
141 '\" # ^Y = starting y location
142 '\" # ^v = 1 (for troff; for nroff this doesn't matter)
146 .ie n 'mc \s12\(br\s0
149 '\" # VE - end of vertical sidebar
157 \h'|\\n(^lu+3n'\L'|\\n(^Yu-1v\(bv'\v'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^Yu'\h'-|\\n(^lu+3n'
164 '\" # Special macro to handle page bottom: finish off current
165 '\" # box/sidebar if in box/sidebar mode, then invoked standard
166 '\" # page bottom macro.
173 .\" Draw three-sided box if this is the box's first page,
174 .\" draw two sides but no top otherwise.
175 .ie !\\n(^b-1 \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\l'\\n(^lu+3n\(ul'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\h'|0u'\c
176 .el \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\h'\\n(^lu+3n'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\h'|0u'\c
179 .nr ^x \\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^Yu
180 \kx\h'-\\nxu'\h'|\\n(^lu+3n'\ky\L'-\\n(^xu'\v'\\n(^xu'\h'|0u'\c
193 '\" # DS - begin display
199 '\" # DE - end display
205 '\" # SO - start of list of standard options
207 .SH "STANDARD OPTIONS"
213 '\" # SE - end of list of standard options
218 See the \\fBoptions\\fR manual entry for details on the standard options.
220 '\" # OP - start of full description for a single option
225 Command-Line Name: \\fB\\$1\\fR
226 Database Name: \\fB\\$2\\fR
227 Database Class: \\fB\\$3\\fR
231 '\" # CS - begin code excerpt
237 '\" # CE - end code excerpt
245 .TH load n 7.5 Tcl "Tcl Built-In Commands"
247 '\" Note: do not modify the .SH NAME line immediately below!
249 load \- Load machine code and initialize new commands.
251 \fBload \fIfileName\fR
253 \fBload \fIfileName packageName\fR
255 \fBload \fIfileName packageName interp\fR
260 This command loads binary code from a file into the
261 application's address space and calls an initialization procedure
262 in the package to incorporate it into an interpreter. \fIfileName\fR
263 is the name of the file containing the code; its exact form varies
264 from system to system but on most systems it is a shared library,
265 such as a \fB.so\fR file under Solaris or a DLL under Windows.
266 \fIpackageName\fR is the name of the package, and is used to
267 compute the name of an initialization procedure.
268 \fIinterp\fR is the path name of the interpreter into which to load
269 the package (see the \fBinterp\fR manual entry for details);
270 if \fIinterp\fR is omitted, it defaults to the
271 interpreter in which the \fBload\fR command was invoked.
273 Once the file has been loaded into the application's address space,
274 one of two initialization procedures will be invoked in the new code.
275 Typically the initialization procedure will add new commands to a
277 The name of the initialization procedure is determined by
278 \fIpackageName\fR and whether or not the target interpreter
279 is a safe one. For normal interpreters the name of the initialization
280 procedure will have the form \fIpkg\fB_Init\fR, where \fIpkg\fR
281 is the same as \fIpackageName\fR except that the first letter is
282 converted to upper case and all other letters
283 are converted to lower case. For example, if \fIpackageName\fR is
284 \fBfoo\fR or \fBFOo\fR, the initialization procedure's name will
287 If the target interpreter is a safe interpreter, then the name
288 of the initialization procedure will be \fIpkg\fB_SafeInit\fR
289 instead of \fIpkg\fB_Init\fR.
290 The \fIpkg\fB_SafeInit\fR function should be written carefully, so that it
291 initializes the safe interpreter only with partial functionality provided
292 by the package that is safe for use by untrusted code. For more information
293 on Safe\-Tcl, see the \fBsafe\fR manual entry.
295 The initialization procedure must match the following prototype:
297 typedef int Tcl_PackageInitProc(Tcl_Interp *\fIinterp\fR);
299 The \fIinterp\fR argument identifies the interpreter in which the
300 package is to be loaded. The initialization procedure must return
301 \fBTCL_OK\fR or \fBTCL_ERROR\fR to indicate whether or not it completed
302 successfully; in the event of an error it should set the interpreter's result
303 to point to an error message. The result of the \fBload\fR command
304 will be the result returned by the initialization procedure.
306 The actual loading of a file will only be done once for each \fIfileName\fR
307 in an application. If a given \fIfileName\fR is loaded into multiple
308 interpreters, then the first \fBload\fR will load the code and
309 call the initialization procedure; subsequent \fBload\fRs will
310 call the initialization procedure without loading the code again.
311 It is not possible to unload or reload a package.
313 The \fBload\fR command also supports packages that are statically
314 linked with the application, if those packages have been registered
315 by calling the \fBTcl_StaticPackage\fR procedure.
316 If \fIfileName\fR is an empty string, then \fIpackageName\fR must
319 If \fIpackageName\fR is omitted or specified as an empty string,
320 Tcl tries to guess the name of the package.
321 This may be done differently on different platforms.
322 The default guess, which is used on most UNIX platforms, is to
323 take the last element of \fIfileName\fR, strip off the first
324 three characters if they are \fBlib\fR, and use any following
326 alphabetic and underline characters as the module name.
328 For example, the command \fBload libxyz4.2.so\fR uses the module
329 name \fBxyz\fR and the command \fBload bin/last.so {}\fR uses the
330 module name \fBlast\fR.
333 If \fIfileName\fR is an empty string, then \fIpackageName\fR must
335 The \fBload\fR command first searches for a statically loaded package
336 (one that has been registered by calling the \fBTcl_StaticPackage\fR
337 procedure) by that name; if one is found, it is used.
338 Otherwise, the \fBload\fR command searches for a dynamically loaded
339 package by that name, and uses it if it is found. If several
340 different files have been \fBload\fRed with different versions of
341 the package, Tcl picks the file that was loaded first.
344 .SH "PORTABILITY ISSUES"
346 \fBWindows\fR\0\0\0\0\0
348 When a load fails with "library not found" error, it is also possible
349 that a dependent library was not found. To see the dependent libraries,
350 type ``dumpbin -imports <dllname>'' in a DOS console to see what the
352 When loading a DLL in the current directory, Windows will ignore ``./'' as
353 a path specifier and use a search heuristic to find the DLL instead.
354 To avoid this, load the DLL with
356 load [file join [pwd] mylib.DLL]
361 If the same file is \fBload\fRed by different \fIfileName\fRs, it will
362 be loaded into the process's address space multiple times. The
363 behavior of this varies from system to system (some systems may
364 detect the redundant loads, others may not).
367 info sharedlibextension, Tcl_StaticPackage(3), safe(n)
370 binary code, loading, safe interpreter, shared library