Library order is important

I've written quite extensively about link ordering issues, but I've not discussed the interaction between archive libraries and shared libraries. So let's take a simple program that calls a maths library function:

#include <math.h>

int main()
{
  for (int i=0; i<10000000; i++)
  {
    sin(i);
  }
}

We compile and run it to get the following performance:

bash-3.2$ cc -g -O fp.c -lm
bash-3.2$ timex ./a.out

real           6.06
user           6.04
sys            0.01

Now most people will have heard of the optimised maths library which is added by the flag -xlibmopt. This contains optimised versions of key mathematical functions, in this instance, using the library doubles performance:

bash-3.2$ cc -g -O -xlibmopt fp.c -lm
bash-3.2$ timex ./a.out

real           2.70
user           2.69
sys            0.00

The optimised maths library is provided as an archive library (libmopt.a), and the driver adds it to the link line just before the maths library - this causes the linker to pick the definitions provided by the static library in preference to those provided by libm. We can see the processing by asking the compiler to print out the link line:

bash-3.2$ cc -### -g -O -xlibmopt fp.c -lm
/usr/ccs/bin/ld ... fp.o -lmopt -lm -o a.out...

The flag to the linker is -lmopt, and this is placed before the -lm flag. So what happens when the -lm flag is in the wrong place on the command line:

bash-3.2$ cc -g -O -xlibmopt -lm fp.c
bash-3.2$ timex ./a.out

real           6.02
user           6.01
sys            0.01

If the -lm flag is before the source file (or object file for that matter), we get the slower performance from the system maths library. Why's that? If we look at the link line we can see the following ordering:

/usr/ccs/bin/ld ... -lmopt -lm fp.o -o a.out 

So the optimised maths library is still placed before the system maths library, but the object file is placed afterwards. This would be ok if the optimised maths library were a shared library, but it is not - instead it's an archive library, and archive library processing is different - as described in the linker and library guide:

"The link-editor searches an archive only to resolve undefined or tentative external references that have previously been encountered."

An archive library can only be used resolve symbols that are outstanding at that point in the link processing. When fp.o is placed before the libmopt.a archive library, then the linker has an unresolved symbol defined in fp.o, and it will search the archive library to resolve that symbol. If the archive library is placed before fp.o then there are no unresolved symbols at that point, and so the linker doesn't need to use the archive library. This is why libmopt needs to be placed after the object files on the link line.

On the other hand if the linker has observed any shared libraries, then at any point these are checked for any unresolved symbols. The consequence of this is that once the linker "sees" libm it will resolve any symbols it can to that library, and it will not check the archive library to resolve them. This is why libmopt needs to be placed before libm on the link line.

This leads to the following order for placing files on the link line:

• Object files
• Archive libraries
• Shared libraries

If you use this order, then things will consistently get resolved to the archive libraries rather than to the shared libaries.