LIB vs DLL

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Wed, 2008-02-13 11:46
Joined: 2008-01-22
Forum posts: 8

In Symbian what is the difference betn .LIB and .DLL

As per my knowledge Symbian doesnot support static libraries, so what LIB is for?


Wed, 2008-02-13 13:24
Joined: 2004-11-29
Forum posts: 1232
Re: LIB vs DLL

Your knowledge is wrong then.

Symbian do support static libraries, and that is exactly what the "LIB" target is for.

Thu, 2008-02-14 07:10
Joined: 2008-01-22
Forum posts: 8
Re: LIB vs DLL

Hi Alh,

You mean to say, if a static library is used by 2 execs in symbain, then both exes will have a copy of the libray, right?

But this will be waste of lot of memory.

Thu, 2008-02-14 12:02
Joined: 2004-11-29
Forum posts: 1232
Re: LIB vs DLL

Yes.
Thats how static libs work.

There is some cases where its convenient to have it as a lib, but mostly the dll is the way to go, specially if you have a usecase where you want to share the code between several exes.

Dlls impose a bit of extra work in keeping your APIs binary compatible and such.

Thu, 2008-02-14 18:44
Joined: 2007-09-23
Forum posts: 159
Re: LIB vs DLL

"You mean to say, if a static library is used by 2 execs in symbain, then both exes will have a copy of the libray, right?
But this will be waste of lot of memory."

But that's exactly what a static library is, and is why there are dynamic libraries.

Your comment about it being a waste of memory implies you have another idea of what a static library is or should be?

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