update-alternatives

[Christopher Faylor]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2005 at 10:32:17PM -0400, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>On Thu, 30 Jun 2005, Bas van Gompel wrote:
>> Sorry for the slow reply...
>> Op Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:17:01 -0400 schreef Charles Wilson:
>> :  Bas van Gompel wrote:
>> [Re-adding attribution:]
>> + > Charles Wilson:
>> [...]
>> : > :  without using execvp().
>> [...]
>> : > :  Plus, alternatives itself needs to be smart
>> : > :  about when to use a wrap executable, and when to use "normal" symlinks.
>> [...]
>> : > Certainly. I'd think generally one should only wrap executables.
>> : > (*and take real special care of dll's.*)
>> :
>> :  Yes.
>>
>> What I meant to say was: ``Special care should be taken *not* to wrap
>> DLLs, although they appear as executables in the file-system.''
>
>Umm, why not?  I mean, the mechanism for wrapping DLLs is very different
>than that of wrapping executables (and much more involved), but isn't
>there a possibility of writing a "wrapdll.dll" that looks up the name of
>the DLL in the /etc/alternatives database, dlopen's it, and emulates all
>of its functions somehow?  ISTR something like this done in my OS class
>ages ago, but don't recall the exact details.  Am I misremembering?

It seems plausible, and maybe even useful, to me, FWIW.

cgf