Is a DLL loaded entirely or only some functions?

Question

When a program uses a dynamic shared library, does it load the DLL entirely (so you can almost erase the DLL from disk during application is running) or does it load only a part of the DLL according to its need at each time during the runtime life of the application?

Answer 1

DLL gets loaded entirely. DLLs are same as EXEs in almost all aspect; the only big difference between them is, DLLs are not executable. It doesn't have main() function - the start of a program.