[Gambas-user] A suggestion for simplifying the distribution of Gambas apps

[Rob]

On Wednesday 13 September 2006 12:04, Bob Warren wrote:
> A single standalone executable program can be run from any
> part of the file system, including the desktop in most cases,
> and has all that it needs bundled with it for that particular
> Linux distro. You don't get a nice menu item inserted for you
> automatically, but in compensation you have a system which is
> much quicker, simpler, and more reliable. How about
> introducing the STANDALONE EXECUTABLE into Gambas?

We've talked about that in the past, and a lot of us would like 
it.  Here's what's needed for that to happen:

1. The Gambas interpreter needs to be made into a shared library 
(.so, like a .dll in Windows).  At that point, "gbx2" or "gbr2" 
or whatever the executable is named would just be a stub that 
loads the library and passes its arguments.

2. That Gambas interpreter library, and all the Gambas component 
libraries, need to be have static versions made of them so that 
they can be embedded into executables at link time.  

3. Finally, the Gambas archiver program needs to be changed so 
that instead of just sticking "#!env gbx2" or whatever at the 
beginning so it gets treated like a shell script, it wraps the 
Gambas archive in a wrapper executable that links to the Gambas 
interpreter and links in any needed components, either 
dynamically or statically based on a new option.

A while back, I took a stab at making a Gambas component library 
static.  My gcc-fu was too weak to make it work.  Someone with a 
pretty intimate knowledge of Gambas but who's better at using 
GCC and the linker is going to need to do this.  I know it's not 
high on Benoit's priority list, so we're just waiting for 
someone who wants it to happen (like you and me) with the skills 
necessary to do it (unlike you and me) to come along.

Rob