Does this load external dlls in Lua in Reaper?

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

While looking for something completely different, I stumbled upon this function:

package.loadlib

from the reference-manual:

package.loadlib (libname, funcname)
Dynamically links the host program with the C library libname. Inside this library, looks for a function funcname and returns this function as a C function. (So, funcname must follow the protocol (see lua_CFunction)).

This is a low-level function. It completely bypasses the package and module system. Unlike require, it does not perform any path searching and does not automatically adds extensions. libname must be the complete file name of the C library, including if necessary a path and extension. funcname must be the exact name exported by the C library (which may depend on the C compiler and linker used).

This function is not supported by ANSI C. As such, it is only available on some platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, BSD, plus other Unix systems that support the dlfcn standard).

This function is accepted by Lua in Reaper and now I wonder: Can we use this, to load dlls/dylibs/so-files in Reaper?

Has someone of you tried to use this already?

[Xenakios]

I didn't yet try it but I think this isn't very promising :

funcname must follow the protocol (see lua_CFunction)

Obviously, generic C libraries are not going to use the Lua call protocol except by chance.

Even if some really basic stuff would work, there probably isn't any way to write and read into/from C structs, which would be a pretty crucial thing to do with most libraries.

Binary Lua modules would still be hopeless to use. They only export a single function, that requires the lua_State* to be given as a parameter, which Reaper doesn't give access to.

edit : Doesn't look good. This just crashed Reaper with an access violation.

path = "C:\\Program Files\\Mega-Nerd\\libsndfile\\bin\\libsndfile-1.dll"
local f = assert(package.loadlib(path, "sf_version_string"))
str = f()

That was just trying to call a simple C function with the following signature :

const char * sf_version_string (void) ;

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Ahhh...whatapity... :/

Thanks for trying it

[snooks]

Interesting, this does allow us to call C! But not any C, as mentioned in the docs this only works with lua C functions, eg...

// for Windows dlls
#define API_FUNC extern "C" __declspec( dllexport )

API_FUNC int test(lua_State* L)
{
    lua_pushstring(L, "Hello, C world");
    return 1;
}

You need to statically link Lua when compiling your C code - full Windows static .libs (and include files) are here...

https://sourceforge.net/projects/lua...raries/Static/

(It would be nice if the devs could build REAPER with a Lua as a separate shared lib to enable using ordinary Lua C libs)