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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Looking for a smart linker for GNAT/DOS
Date: 1997/04/22
Message-ID: <dewar.861685680@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 236541578
References: <1997Apr15.202909.5879@news> <qw6g1wr9rj1.fsf@esmeralda.enst.fr>
 <1997Apr16.162852.5886@news> <dewar.861372455@merv>
 <5jac72$atr$1@gonzo.sun3.iaf.nl>
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-04-22T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Geert says

<<Consider a program using a library of 50 subprograms of 500 bytes
in size on average. When the program uses only 6 of the subprograms
in the package, chances are that these 6 subprograms are all in
different VM pages, so using these 6 subprograms will cause nearly
the entire library to be loaded.>>

Yes, true on your small scale example, but here we have only 25K
of code (that's about a dime's worth of memory at current prices).
For the more typical case, where you have huge specs with thousands
of routines, or at least hundreds, the advantage of a DLL over
unsmart linking can be huge.

You are not likely to achieve smart linking on typical Unix systems.
the infrastructure is just not there (e.g. appropriate format object
modules with separate control sections for separate routines).