Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!gatech!rutgers!att!mtunb!dmt
From: dmt@mtunb.ATT.COM (Dave Tutelman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Turbo C links in everything in obj's
Summary: User library of individual .OBJs
Message-ID: <1450@mtunb.ATT.COM>
Date: 24 Mar 89 21:01:58 GMT
References: <1065@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: dmt@mtunb.UUCP (Dave Tutelman)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs - Lincroft, NJ
Lines: 31

In article <1065@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov> raymond@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov (Eric A. Raymond) writes:
>It appears that the linker in Turbo C (2.0) links in everything you
>have in your .objs independent of whether the code is actually used.
>
>For instance, if you have a file with the following fn's in it
>   main, a, b, c, d, e
>and main does not call any of a, b, c, d, or e, the linker still
>includes the objects for a, b, c, d, and e.
>
>Does the Microsoft linker handle this?  

Both the Microsoft and Turbo linkers do the same thing in this regard.
When you think hard about the richness of the C language, you'll
realize that any other decision could result in serious bugs.

There is a way you can control it, however.
Both Microsoft and Turbo have librarians, whose function is to
turn multiple .OBJs into a single .LIB file.  When an .LIB is
linked, the inclusion is one .OBJ at a time, as needed.  (That's
precisely what you want.)  What you have to do is:
   -	Write each function as a separate C file.
   -	Compile the files to .OBJs.
   -	Use LIB (Microsoft) or TLIB to make a .LIB file from the .OBJs.
   -	When you link, refer to the .LIB to be linked in.

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