DLL handles are a built-in class of objects which represent loaded native libraries. DLL handles are instances of the dll class, and have a literal syntax used for debugging printouts; see Alien object literal syntax.

Usually one never has to deal with DLL handles directly; the C library interface creates them as required. However if direct access to these operating system facilities is required, the following primitives can be used:

dlopen ( path -- dll )

dlsym ( name dll -- alien )

dlclose ( dll -- )

dll-valid? ( dll -- ? )