Static linking vs dynamic linking

Question

Are there any compelling performance reasons to choose static linking over dynamic linking or vice versa in certain situations? I\'ve heard or read the following, but I don\

Answer 1

1/ I've been on projects where dynamic linking vs static linking was benchmarked and the difference wasn't determined small enough to switch to dynamic linking (I wasn't part of the test, I just know the conclusion)

2/ Dynamic linking is often associated with PIC (Position Independent Code, code which doesn't need to be modified depending on the address at which it is loaded). Depending on the architecture PIC may bring another slowdown but is needed in order to get benefit of sharing a dynamically linked library between two executable (and even two process of the same executable if the OS use randomization of load address as a security measure). I'm not sure that all OS allow to separate the two concepts, but Solaris and Linux do and ISTR that HP-UX does as well.

3/ I've been on other projects which used dynamic linking for the "easy patch" feature. But this "easy patch" makes the distribution of small fix a little easier and of complicated one a versioning nightmare. We often ended up by having to push everything plus having to track problems at customer site because the wrong version was token.

My conclusion is that I'd used static linking excepted:

• for things like plugins which depend on dynamic linking

• when sharing is important (big libraries used by multiple processes at the same time like C/C++ runtime, GUI libraries, ... which often are managed independently and for which the ABI is strictly defined)

If one want to use the "easy patch", I'd argue that the libraries have to be managed like the big libraries above: they must be nearly independent with a defined ABI that must not to be changed by fixes.