What are the .bs files for?

MrNobo1024 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

In the lib/auto subdir of my perl directory, there's a lot of 0-byte .bs files (one for each DLL, like this:)

 Directory of C:\perl\lib\auto\Digest\MD5

MD5      DLL       245,767  08-01-02  6:13p MD5.dll
MD5      BS              0  08-01-02  6:13p MD5.bs
[download]

I know the .dll is the library that gets linked when the module is loaded but what's the .bs file for? Can anyone tell me?

--MrNobo1024
s]]HrLfbfe|EbBibmv]e|s}w}ciZx^RYhL}e^print

Comment on What are the .bs files for? Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: What are the .bs files for? by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Aug 02, 2002 at 03:40 UTC
The .bs extension stands for 'bootstrap'. The file is produced by ExtUtils::Mkbootstrap for the use of DynaLoader. It tells DynaLoader where to find dll's that are not in the system's standard locations. After Compline, Zaxo	[reply]
Re: Re: What are the .bs files for? by Courage (Parson) on Aug 02, 2002 at 05:53 UTC
I would rather say that .bs file may contain additional code which helps to find dll-s in non-standard locations, but may contain some special code (initialize something, for example). DynaLoader checks it's size and, if it's not zero, executes it. Courage, the Cowardly Dog.	[reply]