Improved dynamic linking ABIs

Posted Feb 24, 2025 11:55 UTC (Mon) by excors (subscriber, #95769)
In reply to: Improved dynamic linking ABIs by ras
Parent article: Rewriting essential Linux packages in Rust

> What is not the same is C++ (and C) splits the source into .h and .cpp, when you compile against a cpp library you recompile the .h and link with the pre-compiled .cpp files. It's so simple everyone does it that way

Not everyone - even disregarding the cases where templates force you to put all your code in the .h file, there are plenty of libraries that choose to put all their code in the .h file so users don't have to fight with C/C++ build systems or package managers. You just download the code and #include it and it works.

E.g. https://github.com/nothings/stb explains "The idea behind single-header file libraries is that they're easy to distribute and deploy because all the code is contained in a single file" and "[these libraries] are only better [than other open source libraries] in that they're easier to integrate, easier to use, and easier to release", and it's pretty popular as a result of that. There's a big list of header-only libraries at https://github.com/p-ranav/awesome-hpp . It's a good way to make your library more attractive to developers, because package management in the C/C++ world is so bad.