Dynamic Linking

Dynamic linking is a term often used to embrace a number of linking concepts. Dynamic linking refers to those portions of the link-editing process that generate dynamic executables and shared objects. Dynamic linking also refers to the runtime linking of these objects to generate a runnable process. Dynamic linking enables multiple applications to use the code provided by a shared object by binding the application to the shared object at runtime.

By separating an application from the services of standard libraries, dynamic linking also increases the portability and extensibility of an application. This separation between the interface of a service and its implementation enables the system to evolve while maintaining application stability. Dynamic linking is a crucial factor in providing an application binary interface (ABI), and is the preferred compilation method for Oracle Solaris applications.