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Module Development Kit

To load shared object files, GOCR uses libltdl, which is included in libtool. It's a bit less straight forward than working with libdl directly, but in return it's much more portable.

If you never worked with libraries, libdl, or just don't have a clue of what I'm talking about, and ``just want to write this module to recognize handwriting, man, that's all'', don't worry. The developers of GOCR have spent countless hours to make your life easier3.2. You don't even have to know anything of the confusing world of libraries, shared, static, cryptic gcc arguments, weird makefiles and confusing configures.

All you have to do is write your code, and get the module development kit (MDK) from http://jocr.sourceforge.net/download.html. This package is a whole bunch of files that take care of the libtool, automake, autoconf, and every other little pesty thing that would add hours of work, while you tried to figure out what the hell did you forget in Makefile.am. Or configure.in. See, that's what I'm talking about.

The MDK comes with it's own documentation, which you should read before you start coding. All you have to do, however, is to edit the module-setup script, fill some of its fields properly, and run it. It will create all necessary files, and all you have to do is run ./configure to create the Makefiles.

That's it. If you think it's too much work, do all the rest yourself ;). Note that to use the MDK you need the automake/autoconf packages installed in your computer. They are available at your closest GNU repository. Anyway, as I said, MDK is properly documented, so read it.


next up previous contents index
Next: Packaging and releasing Up: Modules in brief Previous: Modules in brief   Contents   Index
root 2002-02-17