Is it good to link a shared library against other shared libraries?

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Is it good to link a shared library against other shared libraries?

I have an application X which uses shared libraries A,B and C. Shared library C also uses some symbols from Shared library A. Application X is linked against A and B during compile time and it does dlopen to load C at run time. My question is

Is it a good idea to link C against A during link time or leave the symbol resolution for runtime?

I would go with the option 2. Leave the resolution for runtime. Late binding is the best option. Also I never knew that option 1 was possible :)

Himanshu 2010-08-23 14:27:07

+2 A:

Your option 1. But it does not work that way.

You link C with A.
As A is a dynamic lib this will do nothing phsically.
It verifies that all dependencies will be satisfied by A at runtime.
At runtime when you dlopen() the shared lib C
It will open C and if you had not already linked against A it would also open A
But since A is already open it will just resolve symbols in C with the A that is open.

Martin York 2010-08-23 14:42:32

There could be a problem if the application and library C are linked to different major versions of library A. Then both major versions will get loaded and their symbols will mix, unless there's symbol versioning.

Dmitry Yudakov 2010-08-23 14:54:16

Yes. But that is a separate problem. Let us try and focus on the problem at hand (which in this case is a non issue). If we want to get into versioning then the OP should post a specific question about it.

Martin York 2010-08-23 16:24:43

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Is it good to link a shared library against other shared libraries?

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