Chapter 13. Static and Shared Libraries

In the early days of computer programming, a program was written completely from scratch, because there was no code to reuse. Each program was new and unique. Since then, programmers have recognized the value of subroutines and collected them into libraries of one form or another.

UNIX C libraries come in two basic forms: static and shared. Each of these formats has its own advantages. In this chapter you will learn how to

• Create and maintain static libraries

• Create and maintain shared libraries

• Define shared library search paths

• Load and execute shared libraries on demand