Shared Objects

Shared objects provide the key building block to a dynamically linked system. Basically, a shared object is similar to a dynamic executable; however, shared objects have not yet been assigned a virtual address.

Dynamic executables usually have dependencies on one or more shared objects. That is, the shared object(s) must be bound to the dynamic executable to produce a runable process. Because shared objects can be used by many applications, aspects of their construction directly affect shareability, versioning, and performance.

You can distinguish the processing of shared objects by either the link-editor or the runtime linker by referring to the environments in which the shared objects are being used:

compilation environment

Shared objects are processed by the link-editor to generate dynamic executables or other shared objects. The shared objects become dependencies of the output file being generated.

runtime environment

Shared objects are processed by the runtime linker, together with a dynamic executable, to produce a runable process.