Comments (lots of)

[user/henk/code/inspircd.git] / include / dynamic.h

diff --git a/include/dynamic.h b/include/dynamic.h
index ee43d1712cd99b52cec8258a6296dae484be1928..db46291c4b888f34acec0d1101ec725431c5383f 100644 (file)
--- a/include/dynamic.h
+++ b/include/dynamic.h
@@ -2,88 +2,126 @@
  *       | Inspire Internet Relay Chat Daemon |
  *       +------------------------------------+
  *
- *  InspIRCd is copyright (C) 2002-2006 ChatSpike-Dev.
- *                       E-mail:
- *                <brain@chatspike.net>
- *               <Craig@chatspike.net>
- *     
- * Written by Craig Edwards, Craig McLure, and others.
+ *  InspIRCd: (C) 2002-2007 InspIRCd Development Team
+ * See: http://www.inspircd.org/wiki/index.php/Credits
+ *
  * This program is free but copyrighted software; see
  *            the file COPYING for details.
  *
  * ---------------------------------------------------
  */
 
-
 #ifndef __DLL_H
 #define __DLL_H
 
+/** This typedef represents the init_module function within each module.
+ * The init_module function is the only exported extern "C" declaration
+ * in any module file.
+ */
 typedef void * (initfunc) (void);
 
 #include "inspircd_config.h"
 
-class DLLManager
+class InspIRCd;
+
+/** The DLLManager class is able to load a module file by filename,
+ * and locate its init_module symbol.
+ */
+class CoreExport DLLManager
 {
  public:
-       DLLManager(char *fname);
+       /** This constructor loads the module using dlopen()
+        * @param ServerInstance The creator class of this object
+        * @param fname The filename to load. This should be within
+        * the modules dir.
+        */
+       DLLManager(InspIRCd* ServerInstance, const char *fname);
        virtual ~DLLManager();
 
+       /** Get a symbol using dynamic linking.
+        * @param v A function pointer, pointing at an init_module function
+        * @param sym_name The symbol name to find, usually "init_module"
+        * @return true if the symbol can be found, also the symbol will be put into v.
+        */
+       bool GetSymbol(void **v, const char *sym_name);
 
-#ifdef STATIC_LINK
-       bool GetSymbol( initfunc* &v, char *sym_name );
-#else
-       bool GetSymbol( void **, char *sym_name );
-#endif
-
+       /** Get the last error from dlopen() or dlsym().
+        * @return The last error string, or NULL if no error has occured.
+        */
        char* LastError() 
        {
                 return err;
        }
-       
- protected:
+
+       /** The module handle.
+        * This is OS dependent, on POSIX platforms it is a pointer to a function
+        * pointer (yes, really!) and on windows it is a library handle.
+        */
        void *h;
+
+ protected:
+
+       /** The last error string, or NULL
+        */
        char *err;
-#ifdef STATIC_LINK
-       char staticname[1024];
-#endif
 };
 
-
-class DLLFactoryBase : public DLLManager
+/** This class is a specialized form of DLLManager designed to load InspIRCd modules.
+ * It's job is to call the init_module function and receive a factory pointer.
+ */
+class CoreExport DLLFactoryBase : public DLLManager
 {
  public:
-       DLLFactoryBase(char *fname, char *func_name = 0);
+       /** Default constructor.
+        * This constructor loads a module file by calling its DLLManager subclass constructor,
+        * then finds the symbol using DLLManager::GetSymbol(), and calls the symbol,
+        * obtaining a valid pointer to the init_module function
+        */
+       DLLFactoryBase(InspIRCd* Instance, const char *fname, const char *func_name = 0);
+
+       /** Default destructor.
+        */
        virtual ~DLLFactoryBase();
-#ifdef STATIC_LINK
-       initfunc *factory_func;
-#else
+
+       /** A function pointer to the factory function.
+        */
        void * (*factory_func)(void);   
-#endif
 };
 
-
-template <class T> class DLLFactory : public DLLFactoryBase
+/** This is the highest-level class of the DLLFactory system used to load InspIRCd modules.
+ * Its job is to finally call the init_module function and obtain a pointer to a ModuleFactory.
+ * This template is a container for ModuleFactory itself, so that it may 'plug' into ModuleFactory
+ * and provide module loading capabilities transparently.
+ */
+template <class T> class CoreExport DLLFactory : public DLLFactoryBase
 {
  public:
-       DLLFactory(char *fname, char *func_name=0) : DLLFactoryBase(fname,func_name)
+       /** Default constructor.
+        * This constructor passes its paramerers down through DLLFactoryBase and then DLLManager
+        * to load the module, then calls the factory function to retrieve a pointer to a ModuleFactory
+        * class. It is then down to the core to call the ModuleFactory::CreateModule() method and
+        * receive a Module* which it can insert into its module lists.
+        */
+       DLLFactory(InspIRCd* Instance, const char *fname, const char *func_name=0) : DLLFactoryBase(Instance, fname, func_name)
        {
                if (factory_func)
-                       factory = (T*)factory_func();
+                       factory = reinterpret_cast<T*>(factory_func());
                else
-                       factory = 0;
+                       factory = reinterpret_cast<T*>(-1);
        }
        
+       /** The destructor deletes the ModuleFactory pointer.
+        */
        ~DLLFactory()
        {
-               delete factory;
+               if (factory)
+                       delete factory;
        }
 
+       /** The ModuleFactory pointer.
+        */
        T *factory;
 };
 
-
-
-
-
-
 #endif
+