Static and Dynamic Libraries

[Timoteo]

I had a look at the lib requirements and saw that you need the Windows DDK (WDK) in order to build it. I've been busy so I've not had the chance to setup my environment here at home for a build. When I establish a baseline that will build and link properly, I will post the results back to you (unless you beat me to it).

[waynew]

Many thanks Timoteo I really appreciate all of your efforts, you are a hero.
By sheer luck and a great deal of perspiration and trial and error, I have gotten the dll to load into my application in a test project test_lib2.
All I did was to put the includepath in the pro file, include the library header, then put the tqsllib2.dll into the debug directory and used QLibrary to load the library.
qDebug reports the library is loaded.
Now I am working on getting the tqsl_init() function resolved. No success yet.
I don't know if I am on the right path or not, but it looks promising.

I'll report back later tonight or tomorrow morning with my results.

I am still confused about library building. That is the library.a vs the library.dll when you build a library with --disable-shared.
I thought that would create a library.a that you could link statically. Appears not to be the case as I had no luck with linking tqsllib.a statically.
Just shows you how much I don't know about C++ yet.

Hoping that someone puts an entry into the wiki explaining external library usage.

[Timoteo]

This library definitely is different (in the bad way). For example, I cannot get it to build cleanly on Linux due to it being bound to an older OpenSSL (if I hack around on it, I can get it to build, but it is nasty). Btw, what I said about it requiring the Windows DDK - total brain spasm. Dunno where that came from really. Also the configuration for the library appears to be totally borked on Windows (VS compiler).

The Trusted QSL software does come with a prebuilt library with it, but

dumpbin /exports tqsllib2.dll

dumpbin /exports tqsllib2.dll

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causes the linker to crash so I cannot even inspect the symbols that it exports.

[waynew]

None of that surprises me. Wysota said something in an earlier post that indicated it wasn't too great.

I exchanged emails with the author and he said he really only provided the pre-built dll for Windows developers using Visual Basic and I know there are several Windows programs out there that are successfully using that approach.

When I built the library on Windows using Mingw, I used the current versions of openssl, expat, and zlib and it built ok.

I have gotten the tqsl_init() function to return success as follows:

QLibrary tqsllib2;
  tqsllib2.setFileName("c:/cpp/qt_projects/lib_test2/debug/tqsllib2.dll");
  tqsllib2.load();
 
  qDebug() << "is tqsllib2 loaded ? " <<  tqsllib2.isLoaded();
  qDebug() << "lib load error is " << tqsllib2.errorString();
 
 int ret;
 typedef int (*MyPrototype) ();
 
 MyPrototype tqsl_init = (MyPrototype) tqsllib2.resolve("tqsl_init");
 if (tqsl_init)
 {
    ret = tqsl_init();
 }
 qDebug() << "ret is now " << ret;

QLibrary tqsllib2;
  tqsllib2.setFileName("c:/cpp/qt_projects/lib_test2/debug/tqsllib2.dll");
  tqsllib2.load();

  qDebug() << "is tqsllib2 loaded ? " <<  tqsllib2.isLoaded();
  qDebug() << "lib load error is " << tqsllib2.errorString();

 int ret;
 typedef int (*MyPrototype) ();

 MyPrototype tqsl_init = (MyPrototype) tqsllib2.resolve("tqsl_init");
 if (tqsl_init)
 {
    ret = tqsl_init();
 }
 qDebug() << "ret is now " << ret;

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Now I am working on getting the tqsl_getStationLocation function to work.

However, I want to be able to offer my application on Linux and Mac as well as Windows and if I'm not going to be able to compile the library for the other O/S and won't be able to use the library I built on Windows, then I think I am going to give up on adding the features to my application that the library offers.

Am I correct in assuming I won't be able to use the dll I built under Windows to create versions of my application for Linux and Mac? If that is the case, then I'm giving up on it unless they re-write the library.

Thanks again for all of your help, you have gone above and beyond what one would expect on the forum and I truly appreciate it. I'm sorry it turned out to be a waste of your time.

[norobro]

Waynew,

I have been following your travails with tsqllib. Not being a windows guy, I can't help you with your dll problem but I wanted to let you know that the Debian repositories have a package (tqsllib-dev) that is being maintained with the most recent patches being about a year old. One of the patches addresses the problem that Timoteo had:

-#elif (OPENSSL_VERSION_NUMBER & 0xfffff000) ==0x00907000
+#elif ((OPENSSL_VERSION_NUMBER & 0xfffff000) == 0x00907000 || (OPENSSL_VERSION_NUMBER & 0xfffff000) == 0x00908000)

-#elif (OPENSSL_VERSION_NUMBER & 0xfffff000) ==0x00907000
+#elif ((OPENSSL_VERSION_NUMBER & 0xfffff000) == 0x00907000 || (OPENSSL_VERSION_NUMBER & 0xfffff000) == 0x00908000)

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I compiled the lib from source and ran your test program successfully.

Norm

[Timoteo]

Gaw, just my luck. Well, I'm a fairly stubborn guy so I would have probably ignored the package anyway, but that is great to know.

[waynew]

Well, I am a little confused now, not being a C++ or Linux expert. My native language is Oracle pl/sql, not too complicated, but it earns a living

Thanks for your report Norm, I appreciate it, but I'm not sure what you mean that you ran my test program successfully.
And where did you ever find that Debian info?
Only being a little experienced with Linux, I don't guess that package would do me any good on say, Ubuntu? Or other distributions?

One last (I think) question guys - I don't suppose the dll I built with Mingw on Windows is going to do me any good if I want to compile for Linux or Mac?

Maybe someone can talk Jon Bloom/ARRL into re-writing this thing so it is up to date. He is linking to old openssl and zlib versions that have known security risks from what I can see.

Thanks for all of your help guys, I really appreciate it.

Wayne
Amateur Radio Operator K4ELO
Just trying to make a good logging program for Windows/Linux/Mac that supports tqsl but it's looking impossible.

[norobro]

.... but I'm not sure what you mean that you ran my test program successfully.

I compiled the Lib_Test app from your website against the tqsllib on my machine and got the following output:

ret is  0

ret is  0

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And where did you ever find that Debian info?

I usually check out the Debian repositories first. The number of libs and apps in there is amazing. Ubuntu is a Debian derivative so AFAIK you can use Debian packages on Ubuntu but a tqsllib package is available in Ubuntu Universe too: here

... I don't suppose the dll I built with Mingw on Windows is going to do me any good if I want to compile for Linux or Mac?

You'll have to build a Linux, Mac and Windows version of the lib.

Norm

[Timoteo]

Yes, I get the same results with the package here on Ubuntu 10.10 and Mint. Clean build with

ret is 0

ret is 0

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[waynew]

Thanks guys, this is making more sense to me now.

Then does that mean I am going to have to do something like this for every library function call?

int loc;
tQSL_Location location;
location = "K4ELO";
 
QString locName = "K4ELO Farm";
char *myLoc = locName.toUtf8().data();
 
typedef int (*MyPrototype2)(*loc, *name);
 MyPrototype2 tqsl_getStationLocation = (MyPrototype2) tqsllib2.resolve("tqsl_getStationLocation");
     loc = tqsl_getStationLocation(&location, myLoc);
     qDebug() << "loc returns " << loc;

int loc;
tQSL_Location location;
location = "K4ELO";

QString locName = "K4ELO Farm";
char *myLoc = locName.toUtf8().data();

typedef int (*MyPrototype2)(*loc, *name);
 MyPrototype2 tqsl_getStationLocation = (MyPrototype2) tqsllib2.resolve("tqsl_getStationLocation");
     loc = tqsl_getStationLocation(&location, myLoc);
     qDebug() << "loc returns " << loc;

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Which won't compile due to my lack of basic C++ skills.
But if you can tell me what is wrong with it, I would appreciate it.

[Timoteo]

/*error here because your parameters are missing type*/
typedef int (*MyPrototype2)(*loc, *name);
/*perhaps something like this is what you meant?*/
int (*MyPrototype2)(char*, char*);

/*error here because your parameters are missing type*/
typedef int (*MyPrototype2)(*loc, *name);
/*perhaps something like this is what you meant?*/
int (*MyPrototype2)(char*, char*);

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I would put all of your function pointers into a namespace and initialize with a free function when your application starts. The will help your symbol management.

namespace tqsl
{
    int (*getStationLocation)(char*,char*) = 0;
}

namespace tqsl
{
    int (*getStationLocation)(char*,char*) = 0;
}

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Has the benefit of being able to say

tqsl::getStationLocation("?", "?");

tqsl::getStationLocation("?", "?");

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which looks alot better than the C convention of

tqsl_getStationLocation

tqsl_getStationLocation

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and it keeps your global namespace from being polluted.

[waynew]

OK, I understand the namespace part and how they work, and that's an excellent suggestion, but what do you mean by a free function to initialize?
Then what does the resolve syntax look like when using the namespace? I have tried a few different things after adding the namespace, but they won't compile, so I'm not getting it right. Guess I don't understand how that changes the syntax other than the tqsl::
Do I still have to do this cumbersome MyPrototype stuff?

It really is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. When I was in college, all they taught was Fortran on an IBM 1620. For all of my frustration, I do really like C++, it is very elegant and powerful. If I live long enough, maybe I will get proficient. At least the rest of my application functions well, although you guys would probably throw up at my code, but the beta testers report no current bugs.