Is C++ linkage smart enough to avoid linkage of unused libs?

Question

I\'m far from fully understanding how the C++ linker works and I have a specific question about it.

Say I have the following:

Utils.h

Answer 1

This depends a lot on what tools and switches you use in order to link and compile.

Firstly, if link some_huge_lib as a shared library, all the code and dependencies will need to be resolved on linking the shared library. So yes, it'll get pulled in somewhere.

If you link some_huge_lib as an archive, then - it depends. It is good practice for the sanity of the reader to put func1 and func2 in separate source code files, in which case in general the linker will be able to disregard the unused object files and their dependencies.

If however you have both functions in the same file, you will, on some compilers, need to tell them to produce individual sections for each function. Some compilers do this automatically, some don't do it at all. If you don't have this option, pulling in func1 will pull in all the code for func2, and all the dependencies will need to be resolved.