What actually means the name L2EXTIA?

[MazeGen]

I'm just writing small tutorial for my macro set, which will work only with inc files generated by L2EXTIA tool. I would like to write few words about it too and therefore I was thinking what actually means L2EXTIA. It is also refered as l2extiA.

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l library
2 to
ext external
i import?
A ANSI???


edit: I am also interested when (in which MASM32 version) was L2EXTIA released first time.

[Vortex]

Hi MazeGen,

I coded a tool named Scan for Fasm, it looks for the imported API functions in your source files and creates a listing file declaring all the necessary external API functions. My tool supports also Masm and other assemblers, plus it has the capability of creating listing files with the L2EXTIA syntax.
An example :

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.386
.model flat, stdcall
option casemap:none
include \masm32\include\windows.inc
include Msgbox.imp
includelib \masm32\lib\user32.lib
includelib \masm32\lib\kernel32.lib

.data
MsgCaption      db "Iczelion's tutorial no.2",0
MsgBoxText      db "Win32 Assembly is Great!",0

.code
start:
invoke MessageBox, NULL,addr MsgBoxText, addr MsgCaption, MB_OK
invoke ExitProcess,NULL
end start


Running the tool:

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scan Msgbox.asm -m2


The listing file containing only the necessary API functions to assemble the source code, Msgbox.imp :

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externdef _imp__ExitProcess@4:PTR pr1
ExitProcess equ <_imp__ExitProcess@4>

externdef _imp__MessageBoxA@16:PTR pr4
MessageBox equ <_imp__MessageBoxA@16>


The attachment contains a similar example with Iczelion's tutorial #3

[attachment deleted by admin]

[MazeGen]

Hi Wortex,
I already know your interesting tool, I met it up many times when I skimmed through different assembly forums while learning how are external functions refered and called ;)

From my point of view, the biggest advantage of L2EXTIA is that it is established part of MASM32 package, so everyone how owns it can use it. I'm in doubt if I would refer to less known or third-side external tool nobody won't want to use my macros, because my set will be aimed at newbies too. In fact, I wanted to write my own tool because I don't need the specific functionality offered by such tools, but I gave it up from the same reason.

Thanks for nice example as well :U
I can make a mention of it as an alternative in some of future releases.