Static Vs Dynamic Libraries

Static Vs Dynamic Libraries

Library is a collection of precompiled functions and data that your program can reuse. Libraries Improve the modularity, reduce the code duplication and speed up development

1. Static Libraries -> Linked at compile time
2. Dynamic Libraries -> Linked at run time

Static vs Dynamic libraries

Static library has its own text & data sections and maintains separate memory map for each process

Process A: — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — - | App Code + Lib Code (TEXT) | | App Data + Lib Data | — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

Process B: — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — - | App Code + Lib Code (TEXT) | | App Data + Lib Data | — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

Dynamic library will use shared text sections mapped once into physical memory and shared across all the processes and maintain its own copy of data sections

RAM: — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — - | Shared Library TEXT (1 copy) | — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

Process A: | App TEXT | | Private Lib DATA |

Process B: | App TEXT | | Private Lib DATA |

In Windows to build as DLL

#define FUNC_DECL __declspec(dllexport) WINAPI — It tells the compiler to export this function from DLL so other applications can use it