What Is a Shared Object?

A shared object is a compiled library, often with a .so or .dll extension, that is loaded by the dynamic linker when a program runs instead of being baked into the executable. Many processes can map the same shared object, so one copy of its code serves all of them. It must usually be built as position-independent code.

Why it matters

Shared objects shrink executables and let a single library update benefit every program that uses it. The cost is dependency management, since the right version must be present at runtime.

Related guides