I know that it hall happened to support platform security and to assign capability to process which was the unit of trust. But what was the problem in assigning capabilities to polymorphic dll( as the applications were)? And what are the advantage in making them exes?
There was a number of issues with having the apps as DLL:s.
The architecture is a lot cleaner letting applications be fully fledged .exe:s
An exe encapsulate a process more or less, so it makes sense to assign capabilities to exes.
DLLs also have capabilities in the platform security system, but they work very differently from the ones assigned to EXEs. (basically limiting who can load them)
So if apps would stay as dll:s you would need some special kind of DLLs with some mechanism to elevate your process and assigning caps in runtime (which makes it more complicated), or the developer wouldn't be able to choose what capabilities his app should have.
Just making them exes instead simplifies everything, and makes your app more like any other process in the phone.
And as a bonus, things like writable static data is now possible in your apps.
Forum posts: 1419
There was a number of issues with having the apps as DLL:s.
The architecture is a lot cleaner letting applications be fully fledged .exe:s
An exe encapsulate a process more or less, so it makes sense to assign capabilities to exes.
DLLs also have capabilities in the platform security system, but they work very differently from the ones assigned to EXEs. (basically limiting who can load them)
So if apps would stay as dll:s you would need some special kind of DLLs with some mechanism to elevate your process and assigning caps in runtime (which makes it more complicated), or the developer wouldn't be able to choose what capabilities his app should have.
Just making them exes instead simplifies everything, and makes your app more like any other process in the phone.
And as a bonus, things like writable static data is now possible in your apps.
Forum posts: 79
Thanks alh,
thats the answer i was searching for.
Would you pls, refer some link or book from where i can get more info reagrding this(stuff like internal working of EXEs and DLLs)?
Regards,
netra
Forum posts: 1419
This is the most complete such book that is available: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian_OS_Internals
Its written by the guys who wrote the kernel.
Forum posts: 11
Hi netra,
just see 3rd edition sdk,you will get more information on it...
Regards,
Gulab
Gulab Patil