I just started learning and working with "Android Studio" software and editing a project. It took too long to figure out how to work with that. I just fixed many errors and now i know many
Linking - Object code (*.o) to executable (*) The first three steps make perfect sense to me, but I am still confused as to what linking actually does. After step three why can't I run the *.o file? At that point my C code is now in object/machine/byte code and can be interpreted by the CPU directly.
How does the compilation and linking process work? (Note: This is meant to be an entry to Stack Overflow's C++ FAQ. If you want to critique the idea of providing an FAQ in this form, then the post...
There are really three possibilities: static linking, load-time dynamic linking, and run-time dynamic linking. The other question is asking about the difference between the second and third, while this is talking about the difference between the first and a group of the second and third taken together.
Static linking vs Dynamic linking Static linking is a process at compile time when a linked content is copied into the primary binary and becomes a single binary.
Linking dynamically is the default mode of most linkers these days. If you want to link statically you have to use the -static flag when linking. To clarify, when I say "linking dynamically" versus "linking statically" I mean the linking with external libraries, and not generating a library that in turn can be linked (dynamically or statically). The difference can't be seen in the object files ...
4) Linking: This is where I'm confused. At this point you have an executable. But if you actually run that executable what happens? Is the problem that you may have included *.h files, and those only contain function prototypes? So if you actually call one of the functions from those files, it won't have a definition and your program will crash?
I often hear the terms 'statically linked' and 'dynamically linked', often in reference to code written in C, C++ or C#. What are they, what exactly are they talking about, and what are they linking?
