Subject: Dynamic Bundle Loading
From: [email-masked] (Ralph Zazula)
Date: 14 Nov 1994 16:58:34 GMT

Hi -

I've just submitted a subclass of NXBundle (RZBundle) to the archive sites.   
This is a class I've been using (and talking about) for quite a while that  
makes dynamically loading bundles fun and easy!

This class allows you to have any part of a class hierarchy implemented in  
bundles and takes care of loading bundles in the right order.  That is, if  
your hierarchy looks like this:

	@interface A : Object
	@interface B : A

and you want to get an instance of "B", the bundle for "A" will be loaded  
automatically before the bundle for "B" is loaded.

The file "RZBundle.compressed" has an RTF document explaining the  
motivation and implementation details.  There is a simple example program  
although this class has proven robust in more rigorous environments.

The makefile hacks suggested make some assumptions about how your  
development environment looks (okay, it assumes it looks like mine) but it  
is flexible.  It's actually based on a dev-env scheme whereby all class  
libraries are compiled into three forms: a collection of .o files, a  
libFOO.a file and a FOO.bundle - all from the same source tree...

OpenStep NOTE:  This class is based on NXBundle, not NSBundle.  It is not  
foundationalized, etc.  I hope to create one that is but, if you beat me to  
it, I'd love to take a look at the results.

Comments, suggestsions and feedback are welcome.

Enjoy,
Ralph
--
Ralph Zazula
NeXT, Inc.
[email-masked]
(415) 780-2893