Why should I recompile an entire program just for a library update?

Question

With respect to the following link: http://www.archlinux.org/news/libpnglibtiff-rebuilds-move-from-testing/

Could someone explain to me why a program should be rebui

Answer 1

What is a "library"?

If a "library" is only a binary (e.g. a dynamically linked library aka ".dll", ".dylib" or ".so"; or a statically linked library aka ".lib" or ".a") then there is no need to recompile, re-linking should be enough (and even that can be avoided in some special cases)

On the other hand, libraries often consist of more than just the binary object - e.g. the header-files might include some in-line (or macro) logic. if so, re-linking is not enough, and you might to have to re-compile in order to make use of the newest version of the lib.

Answer 2

If the signatures of the functions involved haven't changed, then "rebuilding" the program means that the object files must be linked again. You shouldn't need to compile them again.

An API is contract that describes the interface to the public functions in a library. When the compiler generates code, it needs to know what type of variables to pass to each function, and in what order. It also needs to know the return type, so it knows the size and format of the data that will be returned from the function. When your code is compiled, the address of a library function may be represented as "start of the library, plus 140 bytes." The compiler doesn't know the absolute address, so it simply specifies an offset from the beginning of the library.

But within the library, the contents (that is, the implementations) of the functions may change. When that happens, the length of the code may change, so the addresses of the functions may shift. It's the job of the linker to understand where the entry points of each function reside, and to fill those addresses into the object code to create the executable.

On the other hand, if the data structures in the library have changed and the library requires the callers to manage memory (a bad practice, but unfortunately common), then you will need to recompile the code so it can account for the changes. For example, if your code uses malloc(sizeof(dataStructure)) to allocate memory for a library data structure that's doubled in size, you need to recompile your code because sizeof(dataStructure) will have a larger value.

Answer 3

There are two kinds of compatibility: API and ABI.

API compatibility is about functions and data structures which other programs may rely on. For instance if version 0.1 of libfoo defines an API function called "hello_world()", and version 0.2 removes it, any programs relying on "hello_world()" need updating to work with the new version of libfoo.

ABI compatibility is about the assumptions of how functions and, in particular, data structures are represented in the binaries. If for example libfoo 0.1 also defined a data structure recipe with two fields: "instructions" and "ingredients" and libfoo 0.2 introduces "measurements" before the "ingredients" field then programs based on libfoo 0.1 recipes must be recompiled because the "instructions" and "ingredients" fields will likely be at different positions in the 0.2 version of the libfoo.so binary.