Is there a functional macOS equivalent to a Windows DLL?
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Chapters
00:00 Is There A Functional Macos Equivalent To A Windows Dll?
00:36 Accepted Answer Score 12
01:20 Answer 2 Score 3
02:10 Answer 3 Score 2
02:33 Thank you
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Full question
https://superuser.com/questions/228309/i...
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ACCEPTED ANSWER
Score 12
The equivalents to a Windows DLL on OS X are Frameworks (Cocoa) or dylibs (BSD). The system supplied ones are in /usr/lib
and /System/Library/Frameworks
respectively.
The folder you mention, Library/Application Support
is similar to the Application Data
(or AppRoaming
now?) folders in Windows, containing your applications' personal settings.
While I don't know what the equivalent for Chrome's default.dll
on OS X is, the application bundle contains the following:
Guessing from the size, it looks like Google Chrome Framework
might be important (the folder Frameworks
just above doesn't contain much of interest)
ANSWER 2
Score 3
There's no real DLLs in OS X, Linux, or any POSIX for that matter. They don't make the differentiation.
Why?
A lot of Mac stuff, for one, is self-contained (.app's are really just folders after all).
The binaries in Mac OS X (and Linux and other *Nixes) use the ELF (which stands for Executable and Library Format) for both libraries and executables.
The Default file that you found in there was probably an ELF binary.
Update: dmckee points out that .dylibs are under the Mach-O format exclusive to Macs. It's hard to distinguish the two by sight, however, because neither of them actually require any extension.
ANSWER 3
Score 2
The closest Linux and Mac equivalents are called "shared object files" (usually taking a .so extension) and dynamic libraries (usually taking a .dylib extension).
Shared objects are used extensively on typical Linux systems. Dynamic libraries are not quite as ubiquitous because the .app format allows a very safe distribution mechanism for supporting multiple architectures at the cost of larger executable "files".