are runtime linking library globals shared among plugins loaded with dlopen?

Question

I've a C++ program that links at runtime with, lets say, mylib.so. then, the same program uses dlopen()/dlsym() to load a function from myplugin.so, dynamic library that in turn has dependencies to mylib.so.

My question is: will the program AND the function in the plugin access the same globals defined in mydlib.so in the same memory area reserved for the program, or each will be assigned different, unrelated copies in its own memory space? if the latter is the default behaviour, is it possible to change that?

Thanks in advance =)!

Answer 1

Globals in the main program that does the dlopen should be visible to the code that is dynamically loaded. However, the best advice I've seen to date (especially if you ever want to have even vaguely portable code) is to only have function calls be passed across the linker divide, and to not export any variables in either direction. It's also best if there is an API for the loaded code to register the interesting parts of its API with the loader (e.g., "Here is how I provide this SPI for drawing foobars on a baz") as that's a much saner way of doing callbacks rather than just mashing everything together.

[EDIT]: The other reason for doing this is if you're simulating weak linking on a platform that doesn't support it. That's a lot like the other one I list, except that it is the main program that is building the SPI out of the API exported by the dynamic library rather than the .so exporting it explicitly on startup. It's second best really, but you make do with what you've got rather than wishing (well, unless you're prepared to do the work by writing some sort of connection library).