Mentor

Slava Pestov

Skills required

• Knowledge of the executable format on one major architecture (Windows, Mac, or Linux)
• Knowledge of C and Factor

Level

Intermediate

Technical outline

Right now, Factor has a system for deploying standalone applications. This packages up an executable with a Factor image and all the necessary shared libraries. What we don't have is a way to generate a shared library (.dll/.so/.dylib) which can be called directly from C/C++ programs using the standard platform ABI. Now, C programs can call out to Factor code, but must do so directly. It would be good if you could generate a shared library which runs Factor code without writing any C at all. This would be very useful in real-world applications.

Benefit to the student

The student will learn about executable binary formats.

Benefit to the community

Factor will be usable for writing plugins for other applications.