Lazy dynamic linking problem

Posted Feb 14, 2024 4:01 UTC (Wed) by jreiser (subscriber, #11027)
Parent article: A look at dynamic linking

Lazy dynamic linking defers binding to any particular external procedure until the first actual use. This avoids work for resolving references to unused symbols, but can also plant a time bomb if there is no definition for a symbol that is used eventually. So a program might fail unexpectedly when it enters a new phase of execution that uses previously-unused symbols. This can be particularly troublesome if the dependent shared libraries are not careful enough to implement an ABI that supports software evolution through differing delivered versions. BIND_NOW can be useful during development and maintenance, for the purpose of finding such dangling references.