class TPluginManager: public TObject

TPluginManager

This class implements a plugin library manager. It keeps track of
a list of plugin handlers. A plugin handler knows which plugin
library to load to get a specific class that is used to extend the
functionality of a specific base class and how to create an object
of this class. For example, to extend the base class TFile to be
able to read RFIO files one needs to load the plugin library
libRFIO.so which defines the TRFIOFile class. This loading should
be triggered when a given URI contains a regular expression defined
by the handler.
Plugin handlers can be defined via macros in a list of plugin
directories. With $ROOTSYS/etc/plugins the default top plugin
directory specified in $ROOTSYS/etc/system.rootrc. The macros must
have names like <BaseClass>/PX0_<PluginClass>.C, e.g.:
TFile/P10_TRFIOFile.C, TSQLServer/P20_TMySQLServer.C, etc.
to allow easy sorting and grouping. If the BaseClass is in a
namespace the directory must have the name NameSpace@@BaseClass as
: is a reserved pathname character on some operating systems.
Macros not beginning with 'P' and ending with ".C" are ignored.
These macros typically look like:

void P10_TDCacheFile()
{
gPluginMgr->AddHandler("TFile", "^dcache", "TDCacheFile",
"DCache", "TDCacheFile(const char*,Option_t*)");
}

Plugin handlers can also be defined via resources in the .rootrc
file. Although now deprecated this method still works for backward
compatibility, e.g.:

Plugin.TFile:       ^rfio:   TRFIOFile    RFIO   "<constructor>"
Plugin.TSQLServer:  ^mysql:  TMySQLServer MySQL  "<constructor>"
+Plugin.TSQLServer: ^pgsql:  TPgSQLServer PgSQL  "<constructor>"
Plugin.TVirtualFitter: *     TFitter      Minuit "TFitter(Int_t)"

Where the + in front of Plugin.TSQLServer says that it extends the
existing definition of TSQLServer, useful when there is more than
one plugin that can extend the same base class. The "<constructor>"
should be the constructor or a static method that generates an
instance of the specified class. Global methods should start with
"::" in their name, like "::CreateFitter()".
Instead of being a shared library a plugin can also be a CINT
script, so instead of libDialog.so one can have Dialog.C.
The * is a placeholder in case there is no need for a URI to
differentiate between different plugins for the same base class.
For the default plugins see $ROOTSYS/etc/system.rootrc.

Plugin handlers can also be registered at run time, e.g.:

gPluginMgr->AddHandler("TSQLServer", "^sapdb:",
"TSapDBServer", "SapDB",
"TSapDBServer(const char*,const char*, const char*)");

A list of currently defined handlers can be printed using:

gPluginMgr->Print(); // use option="a" to see ctors

The use of the plugin library manager removes all textual references
to hard-coded class and library names and the resulting dependencies
in the base classes. The plugin manager is used to extend a.o.
TFile, TSQLServer, TGrid, etc. functionality.