\nI am working on a project that uses an external library. To begin, I wanted to test if the library would compile as presented. I wrote a program that includes its header file and its own libraries but doesn’t directly use it, just to see if it would compile.<\/p>\n
\nInterestingly, it didn’t. Moreover, I got an error message complaining a certain entity wasn’t defined which I could see defined in the lead header file.<\/p>\n
\nSituations like this aren’t uncommon in computer science, because there are often subtleties to how things work. I was unfamiliar with this compiler.<\/p>\n
\nIt turns out that the compiler may let go of a function not invoked by the program being compiled. Because I had added a header file that my program wasn’t using, the compiler decided to drop a function from it. That function was needed by a downstream dependency, which complained it couldn’t find it. Yet, my program never invoked that dependency. Therefore, the compiler wouldn’t successfully compile my program.<\/p>\n
\nI added functionality to my program so that it did invoke a function from the included library. Then, it compiled. Interesting, eh?<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
Tao’s Blog<\/a><\/p>\nJack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Self-tutoring about computer science: the tutor mentions an observation. I am working on a project that uses an external library. To begin, I wanted to test if the library would compile as presented. I wrote a program that includes its …<\/p>\n