C++ internal code reuse: compile everything or share the library / dynamic library?

Question

General question:

For unmanaged C++, what's better for internal code sharing?

1. Reuse code by sharing the actual source code? OR
2. Reuse code by sharing the library / dynamic library (+ all the header files)

Whichever it is: what's your strategy for reducing duplicate code (copy-paste syndrome), code bloat?

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Specific example:

Here's how we share the code in my organization:

We reuse code by sharing the actual source code.

We develop on Windows using VS2008, though our project actually needs to be cross-platform. We have many projects (.vcproj) committed to the repository; some might have its own repository, some might be part of a repository. For each deliverable solution (.sln) (e.g. something that we deliver to the customer), it will svn:externals all the necessary projects (.vcproj) from the repository to assemble the "final" product.

This works fine, but I'm quite worried about eventually the code size for each solution could get quite huge (right now our total code size is about 75K SLOC).

Also one thing to note is that we prevent all transitive dependency. That is, each project (.vcproj) that is not an actual solution (.sln) is not allowed to svn:externals any other project even if it depends on it. This is because you could have 2 projects (.vcproj) that might depend on the same library (i.e. Boost) or project (.vcproj), thus when you svn:externals both projects into a single solution, svn:externals will do it twice. So we carefully document all dependencies for each project, and it's up to guy that creates the solution (.sln) to ensure all dependencies (including transitive) are svn:externals as part of the solution.

If we reuse code by using .lib , .dll instead, this would obviously reduce the code size for each solution, as well as eliminiate the transitive dependency mentioned above where applicable (exceptions are, for example, third-party library/framework that use dll like Intel TBB and the default Qt)

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Addendum: (read if you wish)

Another motivation to share source code might be summed up best by Dr. GUI:

On top of that, what C++ makes easy is not creation of reusable binary components; rather, C++ makes it relatively easy to reuse source code. Note that most major C++ libraries are shipped in source form, not compiled form. It's all too often necessary to look at that source in order to inherit correctly from an object—and it's all too easy (and often necessary) to rely on implementation details of the original library when you reuse it. As if that isn't bad enough, it's often tempting (or necessary) to modify the original source and do a private build of the library. (How many private builds of MFC are there? The world will never know . . .)

Maybe this is why when you look at libraries like Intel Math Kernel library, in their "lib" folder, they have "vc7", "vc8", "vc9" for each of the Visual Studio version. Scary stuff.

Or how about this assertion:

C++ is notoriously non-accommodating when it comes to plugins. C++ is extremely platform-specific and compiler-specific. The C++ standard doesn't specify an Application Binary Interface (ABI), which means that C++ libraries from different compilers or even different versions of the same compiler are incompatible. Add to that the fact that C++ has no concept of dynamic loading and each platform provide its own solution (incompatible with others) and you get the picture.

What's your thoughts on the above assertion? Does something like Java or .NET face these kinds of problems? e.g. if I produce a JAR file from Netbeans, will it work if I import it into IntelliJ as long as I ensure that both have compatible JRE/JDK?

Answer 1

People seem to think that C specifies an ABI. It doesn't, and I'm not aware of any standardised compiled language that does. To answer your main question, use of libraries is of course the way to go - I can't imagine doing anything else.

Answer 2

We do the same. Trying to use binaries can be a real problem if you need to use shared code on different platforms, build environments, or even if you need different build options such as static vs. dynamic linking to the C runtime, different structure packing settings, etc..

I typically set projects up to build as much from source on-demand as possible, even with third-party code such as zlib and libpng. For those things that must be built separately, e.g. Boost, I typically have to build 4 or 8 different sets of binaries for the various combinations of settings needed (debug/release, VS7.1/VS9, static/dynamic), and manage the binaries along with the debugging information files in source control.

Of course, if everyone sharing your code is using the same tools on the same platform with the same options, then it's a different story.

Answer 3

I never saw shared libraries as a way to reuse code from an old project into a new one. I always thought it was more about sharing a library between different applications that you're developing at about the same time, to minimize bloat.

As far as copy-paste syndrome goes, if I copy and paste it in more than a couple places, it needs to be its own function. That's independent of whether the library is shared or not.

When we reuse code from an old project, we always bring it in as source. There's always something that needs tweaking, and its usually safer to tweak a project-specific version than to tweak a shared version that can wind up breaking the previous project. Going back and fixing the previous project is out of the question because 1) it worked (and shipped) already, 2) it's no longer funded, and 3) the test hardware needed may no longer be available.

For example, we had a communication library that had an API for sending a "message", a block of data with a message ID, over a socket, pipe, whatever:

void Foo:Send(unsigned messageID, const void* buffer, size_t bufSize);

But in a later project, we needed an optimization: the message needed to consist of several blocks of data in different parts of memory concatenated together, and we couldn't (and didn't want to, anyway) do the pointer math to create the data in its "assembled" form in the first place, and the process of copying the parts together into a unified buffer was taking too long. So we added a new API:

void Foo:SendMultiple(unsigned messageID, const void** buffer, size_t* bufSize);

Which would assemble the buffers into a message and send it. (The base class's method allocated a temporary buffer, copied the parts together, and called Foo::Send(); subclasses could use this as a default or override it with their own, e.g. the class that sent the message on a socket would just call send() for each buffer, eliminating a lot of copies.)

Now, by doing this, we have the option of backporting (copying, really) the changes to the older version, but we're not required to backport. This gives the managers flexibility, based on the time and funding constraints they have.

EDIT: After reading Neil's comment, I thought of something that we do that I need to clarify.

In our code, we do lots of "libraries". LOTS of them. One big program I wrote had something like 50 of them. Because, for us and with our build setup, they're easy.

We use a tool that auto-generates makefiles on the fly, taking care of dependencies and almost everything. If there's anything strange that needs to be done, we write a file with the exceptions, usually just a few lines.

It works like this: The tool finds everything in the directory that looks like a source file, generates dependencies if the file changed, and spits out the needed rules. Then it makes a rule to take eveything and ar/ranlib it into a libxxx.a file, named after the directory. All the objects and library are put in a subdirectory that is named after the target platform (this makes cross-compilation easy to support). This process is then repeated for every subdirectory (except the object file subdirs). Then the top-level directory gets linked with all the subdirs' libraries into the executable, and a symlink is created, again, naked after the top-level directory.

So directories are libraries. To use a library in a program, make a symbolic link to it. Painless. Ergo, everything's partitioned into libraries from the outset. If you want a shared lib, you put a ".so" suffix on the directory name.

To pull in a library from another project, I just use a Subversion external to fetch the needed directories. The symlinks are relative, so as long as I don't leave something behind it still works. When we ship, we lock the external reference to a specific revision of the parent.

If we need to add functionality to a library, we can do one of several things. We can revise the parent (if it's still an active project and thus testable), tell Subversion to use the newer revision and fix any bugs that pop up. Or we can just clone the code, replacing the external link, if messing with the parent is too risky. Either way, it still looks like a "library" to us, but I'm not sure that it matches the spirit of a library.

We're in the process of moving to Mercurial, which has no "externals" mechanism so we have to either clone the libraries in the first place, use rsync to keep the code synced between the different repositories, or force a common directory structure so you can have hg pull from multiple parents. The last option seems to be working pretty well.

Answer 4

One good reason to share the source code: Templates are one of C++'s best features because they are an elegant way around the rigidity of static typing, but by their nature are a source-level construct. If you focus on binary-level interfaces instead of source-level interfaces, your use of templates will be limited.