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How are libraries typically distributed? Because they have to be compiled with the same compiler under the same settings as the project using it, distributing the .dll, .lib, etc. seems impractical. Is the source code just made available for download?

Walter
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Maxpm
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3 Answers3

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As you noticed, distributing libraries is impractical... You have to care about the version of the compiler (including Service Packs), the settings used to compile, etc. We used to have 6 different ports for each version of Visual Studio: the most important difference was the Runtime Library used (/ST, /MT or /MD).

But unless you can distribute the source code, you'll have to live with this...

Xavier Nodet
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You can distribute the .dll, there's nothing wrong with that. In .NET, when you reference a library it doesn't need to be recompiled, you can just use it as is. Plenty of projects distribute their binaries but not their source.

Adam Lear
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If you are going to distribute Libraries or Applications written in C++, you will need to provide a different binary for each platform you are going to support. For example, Windows, Linux, Mac, etc. You may also need to provide different versions for each architecture, for example 32-bit Windows vs 64-bit.

Justin Ethier
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