zsh-3.1 development: dynamic modules

[Zoltan Hidvegi <hzoli@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I have stared working on binary module support in zsh.  The preliminary
version is almost usable.  I tested it on ELF Linux SunOS and Solaris and
it seems to work.  Of course the most difficult part is to make it
portable.  I looked at the perl sources for that but I not yet added
everything which is there.

You can find my current version as a patch to zsh-3.0.1 in
ftp://ftp.cs.elte.hu/pub/zsh/testing/zsh-3.1.0-test1.diff.gz

The file date/size:

   15793 Nov  6 22:19 zsh-3.1.0-test1.diff.gz

md5sum:

2b83517e832b9318bc02016ff508ab23  zsh-3.1.0-test1.diff.gz

This is very experimental.  You have to give the --enable-dynamic option to
configure to compile in binary module support.  This adds a new builtin,
modload.  Whithout arguments it lists the currently loaded modules.
Otherwise it loads the given module.  The $module_path array is user to
seatch for the modules.  modload -u modue unloads the given module.

An example module is provided in mod_example.c.  Compile it with

make mod_example.so

Mosules may work on all systems with an ANSI C compiler and dlopen/dlsym
interface.  Other systems need some hacking.

This is an experimental code and I release it only to get it moving.  I've
done this several weeks ago but I had not much time to continue the work
and I'd like to hear others opinions about it.

At the moment there is no support to link a module statically to zsh.  Also
K&R C compilers cannot be used to compile the modules.

When the module code works it can provide completely new and exciting
extensions to zsh: database extensions, X windows etc.

Any new program may be built around zsh using zsh as a user interface and
command language.

Zoltan