Why do you have to link the math library in C?

Question

If I include or in a C program I don\'t have to link these when compiling but I do have to link to

Answer 1

The functions in stdlib.h and stdio.h have implementations in libc.so (or libc.a for static linking), which is linked into your executable by default (as if -lc were specified). GCC can be instructed to avoid this automatic link with the -nostdlib or -nodefaultlibs options.

The math functions in math.h have implementations in libm.so (or libm.a for static linking), and libm is not linked in by default. There are historical reasons for this libm/libc split, none of them very convincing.

Interestingly, the C++ runtime libstdc++ requires libm, so if you compile a C++ program with GCC (g++), you will automatically get libm linked in.

Answer 2

Because of ridiculous historical practice that nobody is willing to fix. Consolidating all of the functions required by C and POSIX into a single library file would not only avoid this question getting asked over and over, but would also save a significant amount of time and memory when dynamic linking, since each .so file linked requires the filesystem operations to locate and find it, and a few pages for its static variables, relocations, etc.

An implementation where all functions are in one library and the -lm, -lpthread, -lrt, etc. options are all no-ops (or link to empty .a files) is perfectly POSIX conformant and certainly preferable.

Note: I'm talking about POSIX because C itself does not specify anything about how the compiler is invoked. Thus you can just treat gcc -std=c99 -lm as the implementation-specific way the compiler must be invoked for conformant behavior.

Answer 3

I think it's kind of arbitrary. You have to draw a line somewhere (which libraries are default and which need to be specified).

It gives you the opportunity to replace it with a different one that has the same functions, but I don't think it's very common to do so.

EDIT: (from my own comments): I think gcc does this to maintain backwards compatibility with the original cc. My guess for why cc does this is because of build time -- cc was written for machines with far less power than we have now. A lot of programs have no floating-point math and they probably took every library that wasn't commonly used out of the default. I'm guessing that the build time of the UNIX OS and the tools that go along with it were the driving force.

Answer 4

As ephemient said, the C library libc is linked by default and this library contains the implementations of stdlib.h, stdio.h and several other standard header files. Just to add to it, according to "An Introduction to GCC" the linker command for a basic "Hello World" program in C is as below:

ld -dynamic-linker /lib/ld-linux.so.2 /usr/lib/crt1.o 
/usr/lib/crti.o /usr/libgcc-lib /i686/3.3.1/crtbegin.o
-L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686/3.3.1 hello.o -lgcc -lgcc_eh -lc 
-lgcc -lgcc_eh /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686/3.3.1/crtend.o /usr/lib/crtn.o

Notice the option -lc in the third line that links the C library.

Answer 5

There's a thorough discussion of linking to external libraries in An Introduction to GCC - Linking with external libraries. If a library is a member of the standard libraries (like stdio), then you don't need to specify to the compiler (really the linker) to link them.

EDIT: After reading some of the other answers and comments, I think the libc.a reference and the libm reference that it links to both have a lot to say about why the two are separate.

Note that many of the functions in 'libm.a' (the math library) are defined in 'math.h' but are not present in libc.a. Some are, which may get confusing, but the rule of thumb is this--the C library contains those functions that ANSI dictates must exist, so that you don't need the -lm if you only use ANSI functions. In contrast, `libm.a' contains more functions and supports additional functionality such as the matherr call-back and compliance to several alternative standards of behavior in case of FP errors. See section libm, for more details.

Answer 6

I would guess that it is a way to make apps which don't use it at all perform slightly better. Here's my thinking on this.

x86 OSes (and I imagine others) need to store FPU state on context switch. However, most OSes only bother to save/restore this state after the app attempts to use the FPU for the first time.

In addition to this, there is probably some basic code in the math library which will set the FPU to a sane base state when the library is loaded.

So, if you don't link in any math code at all, none of this will happen, therefore the OS doesn't have to save/restore any FPU state at all, making context switches slightly more efficient.

Just a guess though.

EDIT: in response to some of the comments, the same base premise still applies to non-FPU cases (the premise being that it was to make apps which didn't make use libm perform slightly better).

For example, if there is a soft-FPU which was likley in the early days of C. Then having libm separate could prevent a lot of large (and slow if it was used) code from unnecessarily being linked in.

In addition, if there is only static linking available, then a similar argument applies that it would keep executable sizes and compile times down.