On Mon, 2005-05-09 at 15:40 -0600, lin q wrote: > Hi, > In reading some ncurses document, I see that > > libncurses.a (normal) > > libncurses.so (shared) > > I wonder what exactly the difference is? Is "normal" meaning "static" > which all the libraries are statically built-in? And "shared" means the > library is dynamically linked and loaded? Yes. Objects in a static library are copied into the target program when it is built (linked). Objects in a dynamic library are linked to the target program shortly before it is executed. The result of this is that dynamically linked programs are generally smaller than statically-linked programs. There are other advantages and disadvantages too; see http://www.answers.com/topic/library-computer-science for more info. Paul. -- Paul Howarth <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
