USELIB(2)                                           Linux Programmer's Manual                                          USELIB(2)



NAME
       uselib - load shared library

SYNOPSIS
       #include <unistd.h>

       int uselib(const char *library);

DESCRIPTION
       The system call uselib() serves to load a shared library to be used by the calling process.  It is given a pathname.  The
       address where to load is found in the library itself.  The library can have any recognized binary format.

RETURN VALUE
       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS
       In addition to all of the error codes returned by open(2) and mmap(2), the following may also be returned:

       EACCES The library specified by library does not have read or execute permission, or the caller does not have search per-
              mission for one of the directories in the path prefix.  (See also path_resolution(7).)

       ENFILE The system limit on the total number of open files has been reached.

       ENOEXEC
              The file specified by library is not an executable of known type, e.g., does not have the correct magic numbers.

CONFORMING TO
       uselib() is Linux-specific, and should not be used in programs intended to be portable.

NOTES
       uselib()  was  used  by early libc startup code to load the shared libraries with names found in an array of names in the
       binary.

       Since libc 4.3.2, startup code tries to prefix these names with "/usr/lib", "/lib" and ""  before  giving  up.   In  libc
       4.3.4  and later these names are looked for in the directories found in LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and if not found there, prefixes
       "/usr/lib", "/lib" and "/" are tried.

       From libc 4.4.4 on only the library "/lib/ld.so" is loaded, so that this dynamic library can load the remaining libraries
       needed (again using this call).  This is also the state of affairs in libc5.

       glibc2 does not use this call.

SEE ALSO
       ar(1), gcc(1), ld(1), ldd(1), mmap(2), open(2), dlopen(3), capabilities(7), ld.so(8)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, and information about
       reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux                                                      2005-01-09                                                  USELIB(2)