Finding Symbols – Reducing dlsym() Overhead

Rod Evans, September 09, 2005

In Lazy Loading – There's Even a Fallback, I explained how lazy loading provides a fallback mechanism. If a symbol search exhausts all presently loaded objects, any pending lazy-loaded objects are processed to determine whether the required symbol can be found. This fall back is required as many dynamic objects exist that do not define all their dependencies. These objects have (probably unknowingly) become reliant on other dynamic objects making available the dependencies they need. Dynamic object developers should define what they need and nothing else (as described in Dependencies – Define What You Need, and Nothing Else).