Libraries

Libraries are the collection of object (.o) files. A relatively independent portion of an application can be maintained as libraries.

"Libraries are simply an indexed collection of object files that are included as needed in a linked program".

Two advantages of libraries:
1) Share a code among several applications
2) Reduce the complexity of an application

There are two kinds of libraries:
Static or archive libraries (.a files)
Dynamic or Shared libraries (.so files) or Dynamic Share Objects (DSO)