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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.
When an executable file is loaded, the operating system kernel reads the path of the dynamic linker from it and then attempts to load and execute this other executable binary; if that attempt fails because, for example, there is no file with that path, the attempt to execute the original executable fails.
Binary compatibility is a major benefit when developing computer programs that are to be run on multiple OSes. Several Unix-based OSes, such as FreeBSD or NetBSD, offer binary compatibility with more popular OSes, such as Linux-derived ones, since most binary executables are not commonly distributed for such OSes.
The handling of DLLs in Windows differs from the earlier OS/2 procedure it derives from. OS/2 presents a third alternative and attempts to load DLLs that are not position-independent into a dedicated "shared arena" in memory, and maps them once they are loaded. All users of the DLL are able to use the same in-memory copy.
An ELF file has two views: the program header shows the segments used at run time, whereas the section header lists the set of sections.. In computing, the Executable and Linkable Format [2] (ELF, formerly named Extensible Linking Format) is a common standard file format for executable files, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps.
A common practice on Windows is to install a program's dynamic libraries with the program file. [2] On Unix-like systems this is less common as package management systems can be used to ensure the correct library files are available in a shared, system location. This allows library files to be shared between applications leading to space savings.
In addition to the binary application code, the executables may contain headers and tables with relocation and fixup information as well as various kinds of meta data. Among those formats listed, the ones in most common use are PE (on Microsoft Windows ), ELF (on Linux and most other versions of Unix ), Mach-O (on macOS and iOS ) and MZ (on DOS ).
A high-level comparison of in-kernel and kernel-to-userspace APIs and ABIs The Linux kernel and GNU C Library define the Linux API. After compilation, the binaries offer an ABI. Keeping this ABI stable over a long time is important for ISVs. In computer software, an application binary interface (ABI) is an interface between two binary program ...