Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!thyme!kaleb
From: kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov (Kaleb Keithley)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: shared libraries, when to use them
Keywords: shared libraries .so
Message-ID: <1991Jun21.155441.1689@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: 21 Jun 91 15:54:41 GMT
References: <1991Jun11.163544.20234@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> <1991Jun18.050150.17149@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> <8448@auspex.auspex.com>
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 31

In article <8448@auspex.auspex.com> guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes:
>
> >You can't, because SunOS doesn't have shared libraries.  (What it does
> >have is shared object files.  What's the difference?  You can link in
> >part of a library without linking in the rest, among other things.)
>
>Just out of curiosity, who *has* implemented shared libraries?
>("Multics" is, unless I misremember, not the correct answer.)

This sounds like a semantics debate.  A library is a set of object files.
A *shared* library is a set of *shared* object files, maybe?

So, if I understand SunOS and its shared libraries (and it's possible
I don't.)  The shared libraries are created with the link editor, and
one monolithic binary "library" is created.  Later, at run-time, if a 
reference to one symbol in a SunOS shared library causes the whole image 
to be loaded into memory (unused sections may be paged out later) then 
perhaps Sun has a poor implementation?

Two questions come to mind, one easy, one hard:

How do SV.[34] shared libraries differ from SunOS shared libraries?

What is the "correct" way to implement X Widget libraries, specifically,
should the class record be in the libXaw.sa.4.2 part of the shared library?

-- 

Kaleb Keithley                               kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov

No flashy sig. No clever quips. No famous quotes. This space for rent.