For a software developer, the idea of a library is quite simple: It is a file containing a (typically large) number of functions/procedures/subroutines in a special format. At link time, the linker looks in the library (or there may well be more than one, in which case it checks each in turn) to resolve any references to functions not satisfied by the supplied object modules. This means that the programmer just needs to reference commonly used functions and their code is pulled in automatically.

Of course, it is not quite that simple. Also, as with most aspects of embedded programming, libraries present more challenges and options to developers … (more…)