Question

I need to open multiple shared libraries at run time. I don’t know their number(count), so I am using dynamic memory allocation:

void* handle= new void* [n]; // n refers to number of handles
handle[0] = dlopen("./fileN.so", RTLD_LAZY); // doesn't work : Error: ‘void*’ is not a pointer-to-object type

However if I do static allocation, it works-

void* handle[10];
handle[0] = dlopen("./file0.so", RTLD_LAZY); // works

Why is that when I am dynamically accessing the handle, I am getting error? and how do I fix it?

Answer 1

You need an extra level of indirection. A pointer to a pointer:

void** handle= new void* [n];
     ^

Your code would be invalid on another type:

int* handle= new int* [n]; // error assigning int** to int*

But it works with void* as void* can point to void**.