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weak-linking-example

Demonstrates the mechanics of a technique called "weak-linking" in a CMake project (Linux and Mac OSX).

Application is split into three parts:

  • Library implementing set_number() and get_number() for a hidden, shared variable.

  • Counter module that uses the Library to expose a counting API. count() returns successively greater integers.

  • Main executable

    • Uses two different counting functions to print 10 numbers.
    • First is the count() function loaded at runtime from the Counter module
    • The other is its own count function that uses the same Number library used by the Counter module.

Dependency graph looks like this:

  [LIB]
  /   \
 V     |
[MOD]  |
 |     |
 \     V
  \->[EXE]

Instructions

Add CMake >= 3.5 in your PATH

git clone git://github.com/opadron/weak-linking-demo
cd weak-linking-demo
./testAllBuilds.bash

Will create a build for every combination of the relevant variables: whether to build the LIB statically (s) or dynamically (d), whether to normally link it into the MOD (1) or to weakly link it (0), and whether to normally link it into the EXE (1) or to weakly link it (0).

./enumerateBuild.bash d01
  or
./runBuild.bash d01

Will test (or run) the build that was configured to build the LIB dynamically (d), normally link it into the MOD (1), and weakly link it into the EXE (0). Replace "d10" with your desired combination to run that particular build.

Expected Results

NOTE: The test step of the demo can fail for a number of reasons. Their abbreviations and meanings are: RTE for "runtime error", DSYM for "duplicate symbols", and DLLF for "dynamic library load failure".

Linux (GCC)
CASE CONFIG BUILD TEST NOTES
s00 ✅ ✅ ❌RTE 1,2
s01 ✅ ✅ ❌DSYM 3
s10 ✅ ✅ ❌RTE 2
s11 ✅ ✅ ❌DSYM 4
d00 ✅ ✅ ❌RTE 2
d01 ✅ ✅ ✅ 5
d10 ✅ ✅ ❌RTE 2
d11 ✅ ✅ ✅ 7
OSX (XCODE)
CASE CONFIG BUILD TEST NOTES
s00 ✅ ✅ ❌RTE 1
s01 ✅ ✅ ✅ 5
s10 ✅ ✅ ✅ 6
s11 ✅ ✅ ❌DSYM 4
d00 ✅ ✅ ❌RTE 1
d01 ✅ ✅ ✅ 5
d10 ✅ ✅ ✅ 6
d11 ✅ ✅ ✅ 7
NOTES

  1. Test fails due to unresolved symbols.

  2. On Linux, all symbols in a binary's namespace must be resolved when the namespace is instantiated. Because of this requirement, leaving symbols unresolved in an executable is almost never useful, since the missing symbols must be provided before the executable is even ran (e.g.: using LD_PRELOAD).

  3. In the actual system test, the produced binary fails due to unresolved symbols in the module's namespace. The result is reported as symbol duplication because the check falls back to double-linking in an attempt to produce a working executable (with the same result as the s11 case).

  4. Test case fails unique symbols test (program output looks like 0 0 1 1 2 2 ... instead of 0 1 2 ...).

  5. Module pulls symbols from the executable (ala Python extension modules).

  6. Executable pulls symbols from the module (unusual, but it works).

  7. Duplicate symbols are successfully resolved and coalesced at load time.

Tested on:

  • Arch Linux GCC 6.1.1
  • Mac OSX 10.11.4 LLVM 7.3.0