[Python-Dev] Sharing expat instances

[Alex Martelli]

On 12/14/05, Chris Lambacher <lambacck at computer.org> wrote:
> Py2exe manages to load .pyd files and dlls from zip.  Apparently they have
> written an alternate dll loader that does not need the file to be on the file
> system.  This is used for single file apps.
>
> I don't know if it is possible to write a portable Unix equivalent for .so
> files.

If you mean, portable to all dialects of Unix and Unix-like systems, I
am pretty confident in answering "no".  But it might be possible to
support many such systems, e.g. by exploiting the DMG format ("disk
image" within a single file), native to MacOSX, that can be used in
Linux (and I believe in some other Unix variants) by mounting the file
as a "loop device" (there's all sort of niggling issues, such as the
need to be root to do so, but perhaps there might be workarounds...).


Alex