What is Shared library?

A library loaded at run time by dynamic linking: .so on Linux, .dll on Windows. Built as position-independent code, its code pages can be shared by many processes.

Field: Linkers, Loaders & Executables

Shared library in the explanations

Questions that mention Shared library (7)

  1. When 100 processes use the same shared library, how is physical memory used?
  2. On Linux, when is the version number in a shared library's soname, such as the ".1" in libfoo.so.1, generally increased?
  3. When building a shared library, what is the advantage of exporting only the public functions and giving internal functions "hidden" symbol visibility?
  4. What is in the .text section of an executable?
  5. What is an advantage of dynamic linking (shared libraries)?
  6. Which describes position-independent code (PIC)?
  7. What does running the ldd command on an executable on Linux show?

Related terms

Dynamic linker Copy-on-write Procedure linkage table (PLT) Application binary interface (ABI) Dynamic linking Position-independent code Address space layout randomization (ASLR) BSS section Entry point Executable and Linkable Format (ELF)

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