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Hiding names in static libraries
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Hi.
I've written a small static (Unix .a) library, as usual made from a bunch of .c and .h files. A lot of the functions in the .h files are internal to the final library. Only a few of the .h files containing the public interface.
How can I hide the internal names from people who will be using the library? I'd rather avoid giving silly prefixes to the internal stuff.
yours, Marcus
I've written a small static (Unix .a) library, as usual made from a bunch of .c and .h files. A lot of the functions in the .h files are internal to the final library. Only a few of the .h files containing the public interface.
How can I hide the internal names from people who will be using the library? I'd rather avoid giving silly prefixes to the internal stuff.
yours, Marcus
Hi...
Well, I'm pretty sure that is what I've done. The top level .h does not include the internal .h files (although the .c files the .o files were created from obviously do).
The problem is the the .a archive exports a load of symbols that can clash with user types/functions even though they are not in the header (unless I'm doing something really dumb, which I suspect I am). Using the strip utility to remove these stops the .a archive linking internally when it's compiled in to other projects.
The .a archive contains 4 .o files. Is there a way I can compile these into a single.o or .a file with just the symbols in the .h file shipped with it?
I'm currently poking around in the autoconf toolset to see how that does it, but that could take me days to figure out. I also want to avoid autoconf dependencies if I can.
Any ideas?
yours, Marcus
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Originally Posted by Duoas 
Supply a different .h file to people using the library than the one used to compile it.
The problem is the the .a archive exports a load of symbols that can clash with user types/functions even though they are not in the header (unless I'm doing something really dumb, which I suspect I am). Using the strip utility to remove these stops the .a archive linking internally when it's compiled in to other projects.
The .a archive contains 4 .o files. Is there a way I can compile these into a single.o or .a file with just the symbols in the .h file shipped with it?
I'm currently poking around in the autoconf toolset to see how that does it, but that could take me days to figure out. I also want to avoid autoconf dependencies if I can.
Any ideas?
yours, Marcus
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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If the 4 .o files are inter-dependent (that is, you either have all of them or none of them), then you can use 'ld' to produce an incremental link of the 4 .o files to produce a single .o file (which you can then put in a library if you want).
ld also has many options for manipulating the symbol table, so you should be able to emit only the public API when you're done.
ld also has many options for manipulating the symbol table, so you should be able to emit only the public API when you're done.
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Join Date: Aug 2005
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If all the functions are in one *.c file then you can declare all the internal functions with the static keyword and the symbols will not appear in the libraries or be accessable outside the *.c file.
Don't PM me with questions -- you might get a nasty PM in response. If you have a question then post it in one of the forums.
Hi...
Excellent. I'll read the docs on ld. I thought there had to be something like this.
Cheers.
yours, Marcus
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Originally Posted by Salem
If the 4 .o files are inter-dependent (that is, you either have all of them or none of them), then you can use 'ld' to produce an incremental link of the 4 .o files to produce a single .o file (which you can then put in a library if you want).
ld also has many options for manipulating the symbol table, so you should be able to emit only the public API when you're done.
Cheers.
yours, Marcus
Hi...
I'm afraid they are not. It's a good few hundred lines of code (there are actually already internal statics as well), so I'd like to keep them separate.
yours, Marcus
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Originally Posted by Ancient Dragon
If all the functions are in one *.c file then you can declare all the internal functions with the static keyword and the symbols will not appear in the libraries or be accessable outside the *.c file.
yours, Marcus
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