Hi Everyone, What are .ini & .dll files and when are they used. What is the format used to write .ini & .dll files Sajid Mohammed ( sajleo@yahoo.com )

An ini file is simply a file which holds startup configs for a program. It is just a plain old text file. A dll is a pre-compiled object file. Basically, assume you had a program which used exactly 10 functions. Now if you ever decided to change the internals of one of those functions, you would have to recompile the entire source-code, and erase the old exe, right? But if instead you placed each function in it's own dll, you would simply recompile the dll holding your target function, and delete the old dll. Thus, it is easier to make changes to a program with dll's. A dll can be compiled with most compilers these days.

It goes a little further than that... The main purpose of a DLL (short for 'Dynamic Link Library') is to hold functions and variables that it exports for use by client applications (which import same, either explicitly/dynamically (using LoadLibrary() and GetProcAddress()) or implicitly (by declaring linkage and type data in headers). The use of DLLs saves space for large modules (so that large amounts of code/data can be shared between applications) and to make updating easier (when you update the DLL, all the clients that use the changed components are updated). It is a little confusing at first, and a bit pesky to use later, but is definitely worth it for large projects. But, contrary to what sebastian said, it is immensely wrong to split an executable's functions into separate DLLs. It is monumentally easier to recompile the entire file, and is easier in terms of space and how many modules the OS has to handle at runtime. Read MSDN for further information on the use of DLLs. And on the topic of INIs... they have been made obsolete by Win32 registry management. INIs, although easier to find and edit by users, are more difficult to use because the OS leaves the file parsing to you (or a framework like MFC).