Hint

This is WIP as gcc 5 might have changed linking behavior. In particular, it might now be necessary to pass the --export-dynamic flag to the linker by adding PROJECT_LDFLAGS += -Wl,--export-dynamic to config.make. This might cause errors with the clang compiler, so further investigation is due.

Getting started

• run compile-libs.sh -f
• in another terminal, make and make run the application
• edit src/DynamicLibs/Libs/Stuff.cpp - e.g. the draw function - and save it to see live updates!

Pop the hood

check out diagrams/overview.svg to understand the basic architecture:

• application and libraries communicate via the interfaces found in src/DynamicLibs/Interfaces.
• the libraries implement these interfaces (and add extra stuff as needed).
• library source files found in src/DynamicLibs/Libs are automatically compiled into the bin/data folder by the compile-libs.sh shell script.
• that same script signals the application to reload the libraries on successful compilation. the DynamicLibs class takes care of this for you.

DIY

peek at diagrams/diy.svg to add your own libraries:

• write a suitable interface header file in src/DynamicLibs/Interfaces
• add a member variable of the interface type to the MyLibs class found in src/DynamicLibs and initialize it inside the MyLibs::initLibs function.
• write the implementation in src/DynamicLibs/Libs; implement the interface and provide create and destroy functions with extern "C" linkage.

Details

• the compile-libs.sh script assumes either a 64-bit linux running gcc (tested with 4.9.2) or mac os x (tested on 10.11) running clang.
• src/DynamicLibs/Libs needs to be excluded from compilation inside config.make
• to make this run on Linux, you will need to recompile oF with the -fPIC compiler flag; apply the 0001-add-fPIC-flag-to-compile.core.mk.patch to the openFrameworks-repository to set the flag, then make clean and make your openFrameworks (from inside libs/openFrameworksCompiled/project)