my problem is pretty complicated and potentially impossible but here we go:
Using C++, I'm currently working on an universal server engine for a game project of mine. Universal, because every part of the engine will be loaded dynamically after startup. Now, also game objects will inherit from a base object and have overloaded "Simulate" functions. In that way, every object would have it's specific behavior and I can do something I call "C++ Scripting" which is alot faster than interpreted lua script files. Also it's more dynamic. (Please no solutions which would kill the c++ "scripting" part, like "forget the dynamic linking, that's insane". This performance boost is totally necessary, since I'm working with large voxel maps)
My Problem:
That are indeed alot of .dll/.so files and I wanted to pack those into a simple archive so I can use zlib on said source code and maybe pack everything together with textures and sounds in little "object packages". Now the Windows DLL API and the Linux SO API won't allow me to load a dll/so file from a memory address, which is a shame.(Am I right there, or can I bypass that? :) ) I don't want to unzip and temp save those files on the filesystem because there are hundreds to thousands of them and that would increase the loading time alot. Also I'm not interested in more external dependencies like boost.
So here are my Questions:
Is there a cross platform-method to create virtual files IN memory with a real path? That way I could bypass the slow IO speeds of HDDs.
Or is it really not such a big deal to use temp files, because the file buffers of modern operating systems are fast/intelligent enough to NOT write all those files to disc? (Actually Linux supports virtual file systems, but windows does not...)
I hope you guys can help me there :)
Not with winapi, that's for sure, but you can do it manually. You can load it into the memory, fill it's import table and call exported functions (after you called DllMain). I saw a program, where someone actually created a new process with that method ... See the PE documentation for details, but it works.
Also it's relatively easy to do, since you only need to find the PE import tables, and do what the dynamic linker does, fill it with jumps and addresses. Dlls contains position independent code, so no relocation needed.
It sould be the same on linux (only using the elf structure), but if you have a better solution with virtual file systems, you should use that.