Microsoft KB Archive/103209

SAMPLE: DLLSTRT1.RTF - Technical Article

PSS ID Number: Q103209 Article last modified on 08-20-1993

3.10 WINDOWS

Designing DLLs for Multiple Client Applications, Part 1: Strategy David Long Microsoft Developer Network Technology Group Created: April 21, 1993 Abstract This article and its companion, “Designing DLLs for Multiple Client Applications, Part 2: Implementation,” discuss the issues faced by anyone who writes Microsoft Windows dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that provide services to multiple tasks. A Windows device driver is a prime example of such a DLL, as are database libraries, networking software, and interprocess-communication libraries. This article provides a variety of techniques and strategies for implementing a client-server architecture in a DLL, beginning with the design of the DLL’s application programming interface (API) and covering issues of memory allocation and ownership, resource cleanup, task initialization and termination, TOOLHELP.DLL support, and installable drivers architecture. The companion article discusses the Grocery Shopper sample application in detail, showing an actual implementation of one of the strategies discussed in this article. For Microsoft OnLine customers, DLLSTRT1.RTF is available in the Software/Data Library as 10-90.ZIP and can be found by searching on the word DLLSTRT1.RTF, the Q number of this article, or S14219. For CompuServe Customers, DLLSTRT1.RTF can be downloaded from the file 10-90.ZIP in library section number 10 of the MSDNLIB forum. DLLSTRT1.RTF was archived using the PKware file-compression utility.

Additional reference words: 3.10 KBCategory: KBSubcategory: Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1993.