shared libs

Uday Mullangi · *nix forums beginner Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 41

Hi,

What is the difference between *.a and *.so files.
I know that *.so is a shared library file and *.a is a tar'ed version(Am i
not correct??..Please clarify)
What advantage one get if we use *.a file instead of *.so file.?
Where can i get more details about this?

Thanks
Uday

Rainer Lehrig · *nix forums beginner Joined: 17 Feb 2005 Posts: 1

..so files are shared object libraries (dynamic linking)
..a files are static librarries

The advantage of .so files is, that they can be used by many applications.
The advantage of .a files is, that everything is linked into your
application. Thus you have no external dependencies.

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