Subj : Forwarder DLLs
To   : All
From : Andrew Belov
Date : Thu Feb 22 2001 03:20 pm

Hello All!

Is there any chance to create a forwarder DLL for DOSCALL1.DLL (like one in the 
OS2TRACE). I'm thinking to create a quick-and-dirty symbolic link support for 
certain programs I use to let them pick configuration files from %ETC% as if 
they were actually stored in the programs' home directory. Or, vice versa, to 
reference files in the home directories from %ETC% (for backup with CVS). There 
are two approaches here, as I see:

1. Create a custom DOSCALL1.DLL and reuse imports from the genuine DOSCALL1.DLL 
for all APIs. This is quite complex since not every API is documented and there 
are specific 16-bit entry points/etc. which are hard to reproduce.

2. Make a DLL of my own (like the one in OS2TRACE) and hack certain executables 
to use it, the one of special importance are EMX and IBM LIBC, I guess. 
However, there is a multitude of executables that need to be patched this way.

The question is, how can be the method (1) be utilized? Does anyone have any 
experience on substituting DOSCALL1.DLL, or this is a very specific task which 
can't be accompished without a major reverse engineering job?

                                        Sincerely yours - Andrew

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 * Origin: Conea Software Mail system - Moscow, Russia (2:5020/181.2)

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