static or shared library?

Hi All, I'm kind of new in linux programming.

I'm going to make a library that should be used by one or more applications together (with this I mean that at the same time they can call the library).

The question now is if it should be shared or static one...??
I was reading a bit about both but to be honest is still not 100% clear to me....

Comments

  • Hi,

    I am new to Linux programming as well and it would be good to have the knowledge, so anyone that knows how to do this, it would be helpful. Thanks
  • The reason to use a shared library is that is saves memory space. Imagine that you develop a library that is going to be used by a lot of softwares (like zlib), it doesn't make sense that each software has its own copy of the library. So, a shared library will be shared among all the softwares that use it. Using a sahred library you don't need to recompile all your software if you make any changes to the library itself (but only if the interface of the library didn't change). A static library is good for simplicity: a small library, that is not going to change a lot and that won't be used by many different softwares.

    Hope that I've helped you.
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