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Dynamic loading is a mechanism by which a computer program can, at run time, load a library (or other binary) into memory, retrieve the addresses of functions and variables contained in the library, execute those functions or access those variables, and unload the library from memory.
Historically, all library linking was static, but today dynamic linking is an alternative and entails inherent trade-offs.. An advantage of static over dynamic is that the application is guaranteed to have the library routines it requires available at run-time, as the code to those routines is embedded in the executable file.
The malloc and free routines in their modern form are completely described in the 7th Edition Unix manual. [8] [9] Some platforms provide library or intrinsic function calls which allow run-time dynamic allocation from the C stack rather than the heap (e.g. alloca() [10]). This memory is automatically freed when the calling function ends.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 17 February 2025. General-purpose programming language "C programming language" redirects here. For the book, see The C Programming Language. Not to be confused with C++ or C#. C Logotype used on the cover of the first edition of The C Programming Language Paradigm Multi-paradigm: imperative (procedural ...
A dynamic library is a library that contains functions and data that can be consumed by a computer program at run-time as loaded from a file separate from the program executable. Dynamic linking or late binding allows for using a dynamic library by linking program library references with the associated objects in the library either at load-time ...
Dynamic linking offers three advantages: Often-used libraries (for example the standard system library) need to be stored in only one location, not duplicated in every single binary. If a library is upgraded or replaced, all programs using it dynamically will immediately benefit from the corrections. Static builds would have to be re-linked first.
Some global variables (e.g. arrays of string literals, virtual function tables) are expected to contain an address of an object in data section respectively in code section of the dynamic library; therefore, the stored address in the global variable must be updated to reflect the address where the DLL was loaded to.
The destructor receives the value associated with the key as parameter so it can perform cleanup actions (close connections, free memory, etc.). Even when a destructor is specified, the program must still call pthread_key_delete to free the thread-specific data at process level (the destructor only frees the data local to the thread).