File: libtool.info,  Node: Dlopen issues,  Prev: Finding the dlname,  Up: Dlopened modules

10.5 Unresolved dlopen issues
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The following problems are not solved by using libtool's dlopen support:

   • Dlopen functions are generally only available on shared library
     platforms.  If you want your package to be portable to static
     platforms, you have to use either libltdl (*note Using libltdl::)
     or develop your own alternatives to dlopening dynamic code.  Most
     reasonable solutions involve writing wrapper functions for the
     ‘dlopen’ family, which do package-specific tricks when dlopening is
     unsupported or not available on a given platform.

   • There are major differences in implementations of the ‘dlopen’
     family of functions.  Some platforms do not even use the same
     function names (notably HP-UX, with its ‘shl_load’ family).

   • The application developer must write a custom search function to
     discover the correct module filename to supply to ‘dlopen’.