🚀 go-pugleaf

Whenever OS/2 needs code from the same file (.EXE or .DLL or .SYS(?)) a second
or greater time, a single copy is used.

I believe the issue in this thread is about the C runtime library, but that
the way some of the ideas have developed the reference to the original
wish has become more vague.

Someone said he wanted a single ANSI-C library in a DLL as part of the
opsys to be used by applications made with different libraries.  Someone
else asked why would you want that?  I agree with the first poster.  With
IBM C Set/2 I use the DLL C library option.  This means that printf, fopen,
etc., will have one copy on my (overloaded) disk as well as one copy in
RAM no matter how many *different* programs are being run if they all
get their C library from the DLL.  On the other hand, with static linking,
each different program gets a personal copy of the C library functions
it calls in its .EXE file and there is no code sharing except between
multiple instances of the same .EXE file.  Since it is more common for
me to run different programs rather than multiple copies of the same
program, I gain from this.

On the main topic, I can see there are pitfalls and problems with the
Opsys supplied DLL for C runtime.  However, there have been some suggestions.
If the opsys supplier (IBM) provided the ANSI C library (or a major part of
it, they might decide to leave the math routines to the compiler supplier)
as a DLL with the opsys, then compiler suppliers (IBM and others) could
depend on this as much or as little as they want.  For areas that they
thought they could speed things up or do the job better, they could
provide their own libraries (static or dynamic).  They could still inline
as much as they felt was good.  Since a certain amount of this library
would be used in some levels of the opsys and standard programs (WPS, 
EPM, ...) it would always be loaded and available to other programs whether
commercial (WP, LOTUS, ObjectVision,...) and program that we write.

I have found using C Set/2's DLLs, that I'm saving a lot of disk.  Especially,
for my small utilities.  It seems I have a lot of small utilities and it 
adds up fast when I have to put a copy of the C runtime library in each
and every .EXE.  Avoiding that saves a noticeable amount of disk.