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If you have not seen your mail on the list, then almost certainly something is wrong at your end. This is the *third* time I have seen this message this morning. Are you sure you are subscribed? Might your MTA or MUA be filtering out messages that are From: your own address? At 05:34 PM 8/15/02 +0200, Axel Siebenwirth wrote: >Sorry, I haven't seen my mail get to the list. So here goes it again. > >----- Forwarded message from Axel Siebenwirth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- > >Hi, > >I have some stupid questions. > >What makes the difference between .o and .so files? What is their use? Is it >just a naming convention? .o is an object file. It represents the intermediate step in the compile-and-link process for a program. .so is a shared object file (i.e., a library); their linking (at runtime) is managed by ld.so . I'm not sure if the naming differences are actually required or if the use of .so is a naming convention (not "juet" a naming convention, though, since if it is one, it is well established, hence important). >When I want to link libraries to a program I am compiling, of what format do >the libraries have to be? Depends on how you link. Modern linking is done dynamically (only one copy of the library is loaded into memory and shared by all apps that use it), using .so libraries. Older linking was done statically (each app loaded its own personal copy of the library into memory), using .a libraries. Of course, you need the appropriate header files in /usr/include to do either of these things. How to get them depends on which Linux distro you use; in Debian, most every library_package_name.deb has a corresponding library_package_name-dev.deb with the needed headers. >I have found out that .a files are archives created with ar. What is that >for? It's been so long since I used a .a libraries, I didn't recall how they were created. They are the old-format libraries I referred to above. They are kept around, at least on full-size Linux installs, mainly for legacy reasons. Don't use them unless you have *very* unusual requirements (I can't even think of an example). >Many thanks and my best regards, >Axel Siebenwirth -- -------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"-------- Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo Palo Alto, California, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - <-> Gateway Information. This message originated from a Fidonet System (http://www.fidonet.org) and was gated at TCOB1 (http://www.tcob1.net) Please do not respond direct to this message but via the list - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
