Implicit forwarding and resolving of a reference made by an importing module to an exporting module for a specified export

摘要

The present system and method improves the way of forwarding a reference from an importing module to an exporting module. The present system and method allow forwarding of a reference(s) through a forwarder exporting module for a specified export(s) when an explicit entrypoint(s) does/do not exist for the specified export(s) in the forwarder exporting module and still allow correlation from the importing module to the exporting module when the loader is loading the importing module during a load time. One or more implicit forwarder record(s) is stored in the exporting module by a linker. Each implicit forwarder record designates a respective target module. The loader determines whether an explicit entrypoint exists in the exporting module for the reference of the specified export. The loader resolves the reference by using the explicit entrypoint to determine a location of the specified export if the explicit entrypoint exists. The loader searches in a defined sequential order for the location of the specified export in a target module designated by a respective implicit forwarder record if the explicit entrypoint does not exist. The loader resolves the reference by using the implicit forwarder record if the specified export is found in a target module.