ExifTool Forum

ExifTool => Developers => Topic started by: l.willms on March 19, 2017, 05:20:48 PM

Title: Why not a DLL parallel to the EXE?
Post by: l.willms on March 19, 2017, 05:20:48 PM
Why do you publish just an EXE file for windows, and not a DLL at the same time? As do the publisher of the sendmail utility BLAT (see https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/blat/info , also -- not up to date -- at https://github.com/tbeu/Blat and even older http://www.blat.net


They publish an EXE plus an DLL with every release.

I would like to use it from my database application. Using a DLL from another application is easier than calling an executable, having to catch StDOUT and STDERR and STDIN ... is more complicated. That's why from my database application I have always used the BLAT.DLL, never the BLAT.EXE

I would also like to use an EXIFTOOL.DLL
Title: Re: Why not a DLL parallel to the EXE?
Post by: StarGeek on March 19, 2017, 05:39:58 PM
Exiftool is written in perl.  I believe that the Windows executable actually contains a perl interpreter (see Par::Packer (http://search.cpan.org/~rschupp/PAR-Packer-1.036/lib/PAR/Packer.pm) I think), the exiftool perl code, and any modules that it needs to run.  Upon running the executable, it unpacks all the code and then runs the commands from the perl code. 

Title: Re: Why not a DLL parallel to the EXE?
Post by: Phil Harvey on March 19, 2017, 05:48:52 PM
It is possible to wrap exiftool.exe in a DLL.   I know it has been done, but I don't know of any publicly available version.

- Phil