On Sun, 27 Nov 2005, Bryan Henderson wrote:

> I have written the code we discussed a while back to make it easier to write
> a program in which libcurl doesn't mess with global state.
>
> A reminder of the strategy: A libcurl user uses one of two paradigms:
>
> - traditional and easy: Call curl_global_init() before using libcurl
> and curl_global_cleanup() afterward. Make sure nothing else in your
> program is using libcurl or OpenSSL, Winsock, etc. Create session
> objects with curl_easy_init().
>
> - private client object: Call (new) curl_client_init() to create a client
> object. Create session objects with (new) curl_easy_init_c() with
> the client handle as argument. By default, nothing that requires
> libcurl to mess with global state works. If user wants it to work,
> he initializes the particular global facility in his own code and
> calls e.g. curl_use_global_openssl() to give libcurl permission to
> use it with a particular client object.

Ok, this looks promising. I do have a few questions/comments to start with:

I'm not saying it is better, but an alternative approach would of course be to
assign the 'client object' to the easy handle with a CURLOPT_* option after it
was created. It would remove the need for curl_easy_init_c()...

Also, I'm not fond of the specific functions added for the single specific
items that (currently) have a global state or a field in the client object:
openssl, gnutls, sock, charset. I prefer a more extensible approach that
allows us to add a new subsystem tomorrow and remote one of the existing the
day after that, without breaking the API/ABI backwards compatibility.

Is there really a need for gnutls global data?

Further, is there a need for the curl_client_global_xxx_ok() public functions?

And if so, I don't see how they can return a 'bool' without us having to do
some nasty typedefing on some places (bool being a newcomer in the C
language). Nasty because it is outside of our name space and so many other
"things" typedefs and deals with bool so that it is likely to cause collisions
somewhere.

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