Creating C plug-ins

You must create a separate plug-in for each of the three types of plug-ins. For example, you cannot create one plug-in that supports both AREA and ARDBC.

To create a C plug-in

1. Write a C or C++ program that includes these elements:
   • A reference to the arplugin.h file for plug-in definitions and declarations.
   • Plug-in API calls for initialization, termination, object creation, and object deletion (see Common plug-in C functions and Java methods).
   • One of these type-specific API calls:
     • AREA (see AREA plug-in C API functions)
     • ARDBC (see ARDBC plug-in C API functions)
     • AR Filter (see AR filter API plug-ins introduction)
   • Code to implement the calls. Use sample Microsoft Developer Studio projects (Windows) or makefiles (UNIX), which you install with BMC Remedy AR System, to build your program into your DLL or shared object library.
     For examples and templates for C plug-ins, see the ardbc, area, and arfilterapi subdirectories of the Api directory in your BMC Remedy AR System server installation.
     C plug-in call sequence shows the general structure of a plug-in program.
2. Compile and link your plug-in as follows:
   • On Windows platforms, compile your plug-in using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003.
   • On Linux, you must use the -malign-double option when compiling plug-ins to make sure that your plug-in library is correctly aligned for the plug-in server. If you do not, the plug-in might produce unexpected results.
   • If you compile and link your plug-in on HP-UX using aCC and enable exception handling, your plug-in will have dependencies on libraries that are not standard C/C++ libraries, for example libCsup_v2 and libstd_v2. If your plug-in has dependencies on any libraries like these, you must explicitly link to them and make sure they are available at run time in the shared library path for the plug-in server to find them.
3. Put your plug-in DLL or shared library file in the directory that contains the BMC Remedy AR System server and plug-in server executable files or any other directory listed in you PATH environment variable.
4. Add an entry for the plug-in to the plug-in server configuration file. See Configuring the Java plug-in server.
   At run time, the plug-in server reads the configuration file and loads the specified plug-ins.