Penguin
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A set of (compiled) functions that are available for programs to use is often put into libraries. On Linux machines libraries are called libXXXX.so.A.B.C where XXXX is the name of the library and A.B.C is an optional version number. Executables can link against a library at CompileTime (called static linking) or at RunTime (called dynamic linking). Static linking is required for certain system executables (such as the Kernel and the linker) but is generally avoided because it leads to much larger execuatables, much larger memory footprints (because statically linked libraries can't be shared) and the need to recompile every executable to ensure a bug fix in a library propogates to all executables.

On win32 platforms the most common form of library is a DynamicLinkLibrary (DLL).


If you are looking for books, software etc to borrow, see WlugLibrary.

If you are looking for how to write shared libraries, see SharedLibraries?