freespeech-overflow

[Overflow] Dynamic toolbox loading

[<oma...@ya...>]

Hello,
I'm new to overflow and found it a really amazing
concept of programming. 
I'm now trying to write new toolboxes for my personal
needs. But when i put the .def file in the right
directory I find the submenu in New Node menu but
there is nothing in it. After investigation i
understood that all other toolboxes' .so file are
linked to vflow (gflow ...) at compile time.
Before trying to hack into code to try adding runtime
toolbox loading i prefered writing to this mailing
list asking whether there is a way to tell '.flow'
programs to load a .so at runtime in order to add the
right nodes to the Factory ?

If not, there are several ways to implement runtime
loading : 
1) some entry in the .flowrc file.
2) some entry in the .def file.
3) guess .so filename from the toolbox name.
4) load anything in ${prefix}/share/overflow/lib
Which do you thing is the best ? 
Do you have any pointers on where change should be
made to acheive this (Which source directory ? Which
file(s) ?)

Regards
-- 
Omar B.

=====
-- 
Omar Benhamid
Tel: 01 46 83 68 88
Residence de l'Ecole Centrale de Paris chambre L111
2, Avenue Sully Prud'hom
92290 Châtenay Malabry
France

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Re: [Overflow] Dynamic toolbox loading

[Jean-Marc V. <jea...@he...>]

> I'm now trying to write new toolboxes for my personal
> needs. But when i put the .def file in the right
> directory I find the submenu in New Node menu but
> there is nothing in it. After investigation i
> understood that all other toolboxes' .so file are
> linked to vflow (gflow ...) at compile time.

Actually the toolboxes are loaded at run-time, not compile-time. When
vflow starts, it loads all the .tlb files in its path (install path +
VFLOW_PATH). The .tlb are in fact symlinks to the library .so. The
reason that we don't load all .so's is that on some systems the libs
were installed in such a way that everything got loaded twice. So
basically all you have to do is make a link from you .so to a .tlb and
place it in the right directory. Everything should work fine.

	Jean-Marc

--=20
Jean-Marc Valin, M.Sc.A.
LABORIUS (http://www.gel.usherb.ca/laborius)
Universit=E9 de Sherbrooke, Qu=E9bec, Canada

Re: [Overflow] Dynamic toolbox loading

[Dominic L. <do...@ya...>]

Hello Omar,

--- Omar Benhamid <oma...@ya...> wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm new to overflow and found it a really amazing
> concept of programming. 
> I'm now trying to write new toolboxes for my personal
> needs. But when i put the .def file in the right
> directory I find the submenu in New Node menu but
> there is nothing in it. After investigation i
> understood that all other toolboxes' .so file are
> linked to vflow (gflow ...) at compile time.

As specified by Jean-Marc, toolboxes are loaded at runtime. Maybe you
should have a look at http://robotflow.sourceforge.net. This is a
robotics toolkit for Overflow. You should mostly see what's in the 
.../src/Makefile.am which contains the commands to automatically
install the newly created libraries into the proper directory.

> Before trying to hack into code to try adding runtime
> toolbox loading i prefered writing to this mailing
> list asking whether there is a way to tell '.flow'
> programs to load a .so at runtime in order to add the
> right nodes to the Factory ?
> 
> If not, there are several ways to implement runtime
> loading : 
> 1) some entry in the .flowrc file.
> 2) some entry in the .def file.
> 3) guess .so filename from the toolbox name.

> 4) load anything in ${prefix}/share/overflow/lib
> Which do you thing is the best ? 
That's what we do, but we are looking for .tlb (which are symbolic
links to .so files).

Good luck,

Dominic Létourneau




=====
Dominic Létourneau
do...@ya...
dl...@he...
Génie Informatique
Université de Sherbrooke

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