# AVS Linkage

## Removal of backed code

The plugin api v3 contains baked code (see avisynth.h from v2.58 and older versions) which is code that is included inline. The result is all that code is “baked” into all and every plugin instead being called from avisynth.dll. The problem with baked code is that it cannot be changed without recompiling the plugin. (If it were just a declaration only then the active code would be whatever is in the current avisynth.dll.) This is a problem if the plugin api will be changed again in the future (and it probably will one day) and this issue is solved in 2.6.

Starting from 2.6 the version 2.5 plugins are supported directly (with current baked code; meaning that plugins compiled for 2.5 can be loaded when using 2.6) and all the baked code from 2.6+ plugins is removed and the plugins are still source compatible. Note that the baked code is moved to interface.cpp, where also the structure AVS_Linkage is defined.

AVS_Linkage is a mechanism to initialize the function table with the entry points for an alternate server. Server here means something that loads and executes an avisynth.h api plugin. This is normally avisynth.dll but Avery Lee has expressed a desire to be able to load and execute avisynth plugins directly in VirtualDub. Much the same way Avisynth can currently load VirtualDub plugins today.

## The implementation solution

On the user plugin side the entry-point is now called AvisynthPluginInit3 and it take 2 arguments, an IScriptEnvironment* and an AVS_Linkage*. The user needs to declare static storage for AVS_Linkage* AVS_linkage; and in their AvisynthPluginInit3 code save the supplied 2nd value to the AVS_linkage variable. The rest of the code should be the same as for 2.5 plugins, i.e. env->AddFunction, etc.

In avisynth.h the type AVS_Linkage structure is declared and macros emit stub baked code that calls the appropriate code in the server via the AVS_Linkage function pointers. The stub code checks to make sure AVS_linkage is not Null and the offset of the function pointer is within the current size of the structure. If okay the function is called otherwise it evaluates as 0. Within the Avisynth.dll project these macros resolve to a simple “;” so no stub code is emitted just declarations occur, this is triggered by the definition of the reserved symbol AVISYNTH_CORE.

In interface.cpp the real code is defined and the instance of the AVS_Linkage structure is declared and initialised. In plugins.cpp the address of this is passed to the users AvisynthPluginInit3 code along with the ScriptEnvironment address. A minor hurdle was that you may not take the address of constructor or destructor routines in C++ so I to move forward I just nested the appropriate code for these down one method and used the address of the nested method. I unimaginatively called these CONSTRUCTORn() and DESTRUCTOR() [edit: shouldn’t this be DESTRUCTORn()???].

In your plugin source file the changes are trivial. Declare the storage for AVS_linkage, rename the .dll entrypoint from AvisynthPluginInit2 to AvisynthPluginInit3 and add the extra AVS_Linkage* argument.

discussion on Doom9 (in particular this post and this post).

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$Date: 2014/10/27 22:04:54 $