File: gawk.info,  Node: Dynamic Extensions,  Next: Language History,  Prev: Arbitrary Precision Arithmetic,  Up: Top

17 Writing Extensions for 'gawk'
********************************

It is possible to add new functions written in C or C++ to 'gawk' using
dynamically loaded libraries.  This facility is available on systems
that support the C 'dlopen()' and 'dlsym()' functions.  This major node
describes how to create extensions using code written in C or C++.

   If you don't know anything about C programming, you can safely skip
this major node, although you may wish to review the documentation on
the extensions that come with 'gawk' (*note Extension Samples::), and
the information on the 'gawkextlib' project (*note gawkextlib::).  The
sample extensions are automatically built and installed when 'gawk' is.

     NOTE: When '--sandbox' is specified, extensions are disabled (*note
     Options::).

* Menu:

* Extension Intro::             What is an extension.
* Plugin License::              A note about licensing.
* Extension Mechanism Outline:: An outline of how it works.
* Extension API Description::   A full description of the API.
* Finding Extensions::          How 'gawk' finds compiled extensions.
* Extension Example::           Example C code for an extension.
* Extension Samples::           The sample extensions that ship with
                                'gawk'.
* gawkextlib::                  The 'gawkextlib' project.
* Extension summary::           Extension summary.
* Extension Exercises::         Exercises.