Shareable Images/dynamic binding possible with Unix?

[Dan Neff]

Please respond to this article in the appropriate news group. Our
e-mail has been bouncing mail lately and I don't want to miss
any of your valuable responses.

We would like to know if it is possible to have/implement shareable images
in the Unix environment similar to the VMS implementation with
the LIB$FIND_IMAGE_SYMBOL library call. I believe the same functionality
exists in Unix with dynamic binding, but this is a difficult topic
to find information on in the Unix environment.

For those not familiar with VMS, shareable images allow you to call
a routine that you haven't actually linked into your executable. The
above library call returns a pointer to the routine you request that
you can then execute. This is especially nice for product installation
where sites may have site-specific interfaces that share the same
calling parameters, and by just looking at a logical or environment
variable you can determine the site specific routine to call. This 
does away with having a separate executable for each site.

Any experience or tips you could share about dynamic binding or 
shareable images in the Unix environment would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.
 
-- 
=  Dan Neff                     Bell Atlantic Healthcare Systems          =
=  Phone: (415) 925-0121        Greenbrae, CA.                            =
=                                                                         =
=  E-mail: uunet!bellahs!neff   uunet!neff at bellahs.UUCP                   =