Informix® libraries

These topics describe how to link the static, shared, and thread-safe HCL Informix® general libraries with your Informix® ESQL/C application.

HCL Informix® products use the Informix® general libraries for interactions between the client SQL application programming interface (API) products (Informix® ESQL/C) and the database server. You can choose between the following types of Informix® general libraries to link with your Informix® ESQL/C application:
  • Static Informix® general libraries

    To link a static library, the linker copies the library functions to the executable file of your Informix® ESQL/C program. The static Informix® general libraries allow the Informix® ESQL/C program on computers that do not support shared memory to access the Informix® general library functions.

  • Shared Informix® general libraries

    To link a shared library, the linker copies information about the location of the library to the executable file of your Informix® ESQL/C program. The shared Informix® libraries allow several applications to share a single copy of these libraries, which the operating system loads, once, into shared memory.

  • Thread-safe versions of static and shared Informix® general libraries

    The thread-safe versions of Informix® general libraries allow the Informix® ESQL/C application that has several threads to call these library functions simultaneously. The thread-safe versions of Informix® libraries are available as both static libraries and shared libraries.

Beginning with Informix® Client Software Development Kit version 3.0, static versions of Informix® general libraries are available on Windows™ and UNIX™ operating systems. The following table shows the available options.
Table 1. Different version of the ESQL/C general library available for UNIX™ and Windows™
Linking options Thread-safe Default
Static Static, thread-safe general libraries Static, default general libraries
Shared Shared, thread-safe general libraries Shared, default general libraries.