questions about DLL's: .a, .def, and .dll

[Oliver]

Hi folks, I'm confused about the files that dllwrap 
creates. On Unix (where I've been programming forever) all you 
have to do is create a .so shared library. But dllwrap ends up 
creating a .a file, a .def file, and a .dll file, yet I can 
build a program that links to, e.g., mylib.dll, with only "-L. -lmylib",
*wihtout* having the .def or .a available. So where and when are the .a and 
.def files needed?

Also, I read in the various docs (dllhelpers etc) that you have to 
compile the file that has DllMain using either "extern 'C'" around the 
DllMain function, or make it a C file rather than a c++ file and compile 
with gcc, yet it worked for me as a c++ file without the extern, is this 
new behavior or is something going to blow up on me later?

Thanks,
Oliver




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