TIP #416: New Options for 'load': -global and -lazy
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TIP:	416
Title:	New Options for 'load': -global and -lazy
Version:	$Revision: 1.5 $
Authors:	Christian Delbaere <cdelbaere@rogers.com>
	Jan Nijtmans <nijtmans@users.sf.net>
	Jan Nijtmans <jan.nijtmans@gmail.com>
State:	Final
Type:	Project
Tcl-Version:	8.6
Vote:	Done
Created:	Wed Oct 31 00:00:00 UTC 2012
Abstract
This TIP proposes enhancing the Tcl load command with the additional options -global and -lazy. It is implemented on top of [357], by defining a meaning to the flags parameter already defined there.
Rationale
Platforms that use the dlopen() function to Tcl load shared modules at runtime provide options to control how the library is loaded:
global vs. local symbol scoping
lazy vs. now symbol resolution
Currently, Tcl's load command has hard coded defaults for these options and they cannot be overridden within a Tcl script. This imposes constraints on the internal implementation of the modules intended to be loaded into the interpreter. This is especially problematic for modules that provide Tcl scripting bindings for existing C++ APIs. Often, the C++ APIs make assumptions about the availability and scoping of their symbols.
Tcl binding packages for C++ APIs are often created by a different development group than the one that created the original C++ API. Because the two groups are independent, the C++ API maintainers will not always be open or able to change their code to fit the requirements to be loaded into a scripting language.
A common problem occurs when the same static variable is present in two different Tcl modules. For some applications, the variable is meant to be shared across modules (global scoping), while in other applications, the variable must have its own value within each module (local scoping). If the wrong scoping is chosen, the underlying code will not work correctly; rather it will yield strange bugs and / or crashes.
Also in the domain of Tcl bindings for C++ APIs: it's convenient for the binding package maintainers to have binary compatibility between one version of the Tcl API and several versions of the C++ API. The -lazy flag for Tcl's load command will provides the feature necessary for this flexibility, since it can be used to defer missing symbol errors. So, users can often continue to run their scripts as long as they restrict themselves to calling only commands where the symbols are available.
Of course, some applications work best when load is called with -global and some work best without it. The same can be said for -lazy. By providing these options, Tcl will allow programmers to choose the best fit for their application.
Specification
In [357], the Tcl_LoadFile is given as:
EXTERN int Tcl_LoadFile( Tcl_Interp *interp, Tcl_Obj *pathPtr, const char *symbols[], int flags, void *procPtrs, Tcl_LoadHandle *handlePtr);
The meaning of the flags parameter is not defined in TIP #357, except that the current value should be 0. This TIP defines the meaning of the first two bits of this parameter:
#define TCL_LOAD_GLOBAL 1
#define TCL_LOAD_LAZY 2
Any combination (logical or) of those two bits can be given to the flags parameter. The remaining bits are meant for future extension and are currently ignored, but should be set to 0.
The load command will get two new options:
Current specification:
load fileName ?packageName ?interp??
Recommended specification:
load ?-global? ?-lazy? ?--? fileName ?packageName ?interp??
Discussion
Not all platforms may support library loading to a degree required for this TIP functionality. In that case, the additional options just act as if they were not there. The reference implementation works on most modern UNIX systems and MacOSX, which use dlopen() or NSLinkModule(). Windows does not allow lazy symbol resolution or global scoping, so the options have no effect on Windows.
The load command will determine the use of the new form by checking if more than one argument is given and the first argument starts with a -. This should not affect any existing extensions, as dynamic library filenames beginning with - are rare.
Note that use of the -global or -lazy option may lead to crashes in your application later (in case of symbol conflicts resp. missing symbols), which cannot be detected during the load. So, only use this when you know what you are doing, you will not get a nice error message when something is wrong with the loaded library.
Examples
Load a module with the defaults (local scoping, "now" resolution)
 load module.so
Load the module with global scoping and "now" resolution
 load -global module.so
Load the module with global scoping and lazy resolution
 load -global -lazy module.so
Reference Implementation
A reference implementation is available in the frq-3579001 branch; see https://core.tcl.tk/tcl/timeline?r=frq-3579001
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.
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