Chilkat Dynamic Shared Object (DLL) API Pre-Release

There has been a long-time need for the Chilkat API in the form of a  DLL (on Windows) or a .so (on Linux/Mac OS X).   On the Windows platform, this would be the same as how the Window Platform SDK is provided in DLL form.  The “Chilkat DSO” API, where “DSO” stands for Dynamic Shared Object, is a functional API (not object-oriented) and it provides both ANSI and Unicode functions.  On the Windows platform, this is identical to how the MS Platform SDK provides both ANSI and Unicode, where the ANSI function names end with “A” and the Unicode function names end with “W”.   The API is identical to the current Chilkat “C” and “Unicode C” library API’s, with one exception explained below.

Additionally, the Chilkat DSO will operate as the back-end for the Chilkat Mono implementation, which is also coming soon.  (The Chilkat Mono assembly will be a 100% managed assembly, but internally will call out to the implementation in the Chilkat DSO DLL or shared-library.)

A v9.4.1 pre-release of the Windows Chilkat DSO DLL is available here:

cdecl calling convention: http://www.chilkatsoft.com/preRelease/chilkatDso-9_4_1.zip

stdcall calling convention: http://www.chilkatsoft.com/preRelease/chilkatDso-9_4_1-stdcall.zip

Also see the Chilkat “C” reference documentation and the “Unicode C” reference documentation

A Difference between the Chilkat DSO and the Chilkat Unicode C library

The difference has to do with the Create and Dispose functions.  For example, in the Chilkat Unicode C library, these are the functions for creating and disposing of an SFTP opaque object:

HCkSFtpW CkSFtpW_Create(void);
void CkSFtpW_Dispose(HCkSFtpW handle);

In the Chilkat DSO, the “W” in the function name is always at the end for Unicode functions:

HCkSFtpW CkSFtp_CreateW(void);
void CkSFtp_DisposeW(HCkSFtpW handle)