os:library

Table of Contents

About

native library are object file (binary) that has been compiled to the target operating system

They can be used as libary in a application

There is two types of OS library:

Shared
or Static

See shared_vs_static

Interface

A native interface is an interface that permits to call native library as a normal library.

Example:

Java: JNI. See also: Preset for interface to C/C++ library with JNI.
http://www.swig.org: SWIG is an interface compiler that connects programs written in C and C++ with scripting languages such as Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl.

Shared vs Static

Memory Footprint

Shared libraries can be used by any application software on the system without loading multiple copies into memory.
Static libraries copy the code directly into the application therefore growing every application by the size of all the libraries they use.

In most modern Unix-like systems, including Linux, programs are by default compiled to use shared library (so, dll)

Static libraries (.a suffix) are incorporated into the binary at link time
whereas dynamic ones (so, dll suffix) are referenced by location.

Code versioning

Shared libraries have no built-in mechanism for backward compatibility. Minor changes may cause the application to crash.
Static libraries avoid this problem because the version that was used to build the application is included inside it, so even if a newer version exists elsewhere on the system, this does not affect the application.