Bye Bye DLL hell
(or how to link DLLs statically in Delphi)

Synopsis
This article describes step for step the creation of a "real" Delphi unit out of nearly any DLL, which will be linked and loaded as any other unit without any external dependencies.

Credits
The method to integrate a DLL into Delphi and the DLLLoader and DLL2pas utilities were created by Benjamin Rosseaux (www.0ok.de, benjamin@0ok.de), who did nearly all the work

 

To achieve the following results, you have to download the DLLTools and expand them into any directory.

If there does already exist a dynamical loader (a unit which loads DLL entries into pointers) it can be converted to a static Delphi unit with the following steps:

1.

Task
Copy the DLL into the DLLTools subdirectory and open a command shell there. To simplify this task, you may just double click onto shell.bat.
Result
The DLL resides in the DLLTools directory, and you can use the command shell there :^)

 
2.

Task
Start DLL2PAS with the name of the DLL without extension and the name of the dynamical loader. Use capitals in the way you want them in the resulting unit.
Example
dll2pas ODE DynODE.pas
Result
You get a Pascal unit with the same name as the DLL

 
3. Task
Delete any unneeded parts (such as loading and unloading routines) since this task will be done automatically in our newly created unit. transfer the implementations of any "real" Delphi routines.
Result
We have a static import library for our DLL

 

If there is only a static loader for the DLL, you can create code sequences for dynamical loading this way:

Task
Copy the declaration of all functions (and only the functions) into a file named input.txt into to DLLTools directory. Now call the program Static2DynDLL
Result
You get the files 0pointers.txt, 0load.txt and 0setnil.txt which can be used to create a dynamic import library.
Notice
If a function declaration spans several lines, you might have to edit the created source, since Static2DynDLL isn't too intelligent
Tip
You can call DLL2PAS with just the name of the DLL and insert the code sections created by Static2DynDLL manually

 

The download of the DLLTools already contains static import libraries for the physic engines ODE (v0.5) and Newton (v1.24). Adaption of newer versions or other DLLs should be easy. The ODE and Newton DLLs are also included, so that you can reproduce the results yourself - of course those aren't needed anymore with our newly created import libraries.

Stay tuned and have fun,