Re: [boost] [all] Request for out of the box visibility support

Subject: Re: [boost] [all] Request for out of the box visibility support
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2018-08-18 15:19:06

On 8/18/18 6:58 AM, Edward Diener via Boost wrote:
> 
> I do not see any difference, vis-a-vis the visibility problem discussed, 
> between dynamically loaded shared libraries or statically loaded shared 
> libraries. 

visibility isn't really an issue with static libraries. visibility 
decreases the number of externally visible symbols.  In linking a static 
library this might decrease linking times - but I haven't noticed it and 
I never received complaints about it.  I think that the BOOST visibility 
macros are defined to nothing for static builds.

But for shared libraries it's a whole 'nuther issue.  The huge number of 
symbols in libraries can make the shared libraries much, much larger and 
slow down dynamic linking time considerably.  This is why this is a 
worthy project.

 From personal experience in implementing this for the serialization 
library (admittedly a more complex example), anyone who embarks upon 
this will be disappointed at the amount of time it ends up consuming.

Robert Ramey