Hands-On Data Structures and Algorithms with Rust

Static and dynamic libraries

Generally, Rust dependencies have two types of linking:

• Static: Via the rlib format.
• Dynamic: Via shared libraries (.so or .dll).

The preference—if a corresponding rlib can be found—is to link statically and therefore include all dependencies into the output binary, making the file a lot larger (to the dismay of embedded programmers). Therefore, if multiple Rust programs use the same dependency, each comes with its own built-in version. It's all about the context though, since, as Go's success has shown, static linking can simplify complex deployments since only a single file has to be rolled out.

There are drawbacks to the static linking approach beyond size: for static libraries, all dependencies have to be ...