Plugin architecture

ello /prog/ i was wondering if you could help me with a question i've been asking myself for some time: how do plugin architectures work? how do languages like C (un)load plugin code from files? it's a mystery to me... or do you just create a char pointer, load the file into it and JMP to the first position? can you do this in pure C or do you need ASM? elighten me

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/dlopen.html
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/dlsym.html

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms684175%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms683212%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Why is Windows API so fucking ugly?

>>3
Because is WinAPI designer followed some "Scalable Enterprise Command Pattern" and encapsulated the nulls inside a separate command object it would a bloated mess which would not reach the speed or memory sizes expected of software for entry-level hardware, such as windows.

Have you synergized your subscription to Scalable Enterprise Command Patterns today?

>>2
I was expecting the second two links to be LoadLibrary and GetProcAddress.

>>3
The POSIX and Windows functions look almost exactly the same.

>>6
except for that macro crap that's worse than void.h

BOOL WinAPI defineTypedVariableName(wstring VarName,BOOL IsSigned,BOOL IsCanHasSign,DWORD ByteLength,DWORD Align,BOOL IsConst,BOOL IsVolatile,BOOL ThreadLocal, BOOL ReserveRegister,BOOL RestrictPtrUse,BOOL HasParentStruct)
Syntax:Self-documenting
Returns:False if variable cannot be initialized, true if initialization succeeds.
Example use:
BOOL IntStatus=defineTypedVariableName("MyInt",False,True,4,8,False,False,False,False,False,False)

>>3
The windows API was inspired by 1980s macintosh toolbox API, struct heavy camel case named functions with pascal calling convention.