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Re: Questions on exporting functions from a shared library


From: Brian Dessent
Subject: Re: Questions on exporting functions from a shared library
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:49:37 -0700

Jef Driesen wrote:

> And how about gcc < 4.0 that do not support the visibility attributes?
> Is there a way to hide non-public symbols? Is the version script still
> available in this case? Is it possible to use both the attributes and
> the -export-symbols together?

There are two aspects to the symbol visibility stuff:

A) When the compiler knows at compile time that a function or variable
has hidden visibility it can create more efficient code for
calling/accessing it because it doesn't have to use the usual PIC
indirection through the PLT/GOT.  This is similar to how marking a
function static allows the compiler more latitude to optimize it, except
this also works for functions that must remain accessible from other
objects in the library but not accessible from outside the library.

B) When linking the shared library, it's helpful to reduce the number of
entries in the dynamic symbol table to only those that are part of the
defined public API.  This is what improves the symbol lookup time during
startup, as well as ensuring that no client of your library accidently
uses some undocumented or internal interface.

When you use __attribute__((visibility)) you get both (A) and (B), but
when you use a version map you get (B) only.  However, since (B) only
happens at link-time it doesn't require any compiler support and it only
depends on whether the linker supports symbol versioning.  I believe
that libtool is smart enough to check the linker for symbol versioning
support to implement -export-symbols, so as long as you are using a
non-ancient version of binutils it should work fine with gcc < 4 and
still provide the (B) benefits.

Brian




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