[Geany] "plugins" for plugins

[Jeff Pohlmeyer]

As I mentioned before in the other thread, I have been
having a really hard time trying to figure out how to get
Lua modules to load successfully from inside the Lua plugin.

A few of them will load, but most of the time I end up with
"undefined reference" errors when the module tries to call
some C function from the Lua library.

After trying just about every combination of linker flags
(and a few impossible ones) re-compiling, re-installing,
and re-starting, again and again, all without any luck,
I finally stumbled upon the solution - if I remove the
G_MODULE_BIND_LOCAL flag from g_module_open() in plugins.c,
everything works just fine.

But it might not be a good idea to let any and all plugins
have access to the global namespace like that, so I wonder
if there could be some way for a plugin to request this,
maybe something like this...

Open the plugin normally, using the G_MODULE_BIND_LOCAL
flag, and check for the existence of some symbol, e.g.

  make_me_global=TRUE;

If that symbol is NOT found, or if it evaluates to FALSE,
then continue on loading the plugin as always. But if the
symbol exists and is true, then close the module and
re-open it *without* the G_MODULE_BIND_LOCAL flag.

That should keep the performance hit to a minimum, and
still keep compatibility with existing plugins.

Of course, plugins should only enable this if they really
need it, and the ones that do should take some effort to
avoid interfering with each other. ( Using static symbols
when possible, and trying to use some hopefully unique
naming prefix, etc. )

If you agree to this, I will try to work up a patch.

What do you think?



 - Jeff