APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DYNAMIC LINKING OF COMPUTER SOFTWARE COMPONENTS

An apparatus and method for the dynamic (execution time) linking of object oriented software components is disclosed. The present invention comprises a computer system including a set of at least two software components. This invention provides a method and means for dynamically linking object oriented software components during run time execution of the program. The present includes two main features. First, a query function is provided to allow an application component to determine, during program execution time, the name and location of library classes available for use. Second, the application component can create (instantiate) instances of derived classes of an abstract base class. The application component can manipulate the instantiated object using the abstract interface provided by the base class definition. The implementation of the present invention involves processing at two steps in the software generation cycle. First, the prior art static linker must be modified to provide processing support for the present invention at link time. Second, the main features of the present invention are performed at program execution time.