DSO Terms Galore

Hackers,

I’m trying to understand the standard terms for extension libraries. There seem too a bewildering number of terms used to refer to a shared object library, for example:

* LOAD[1]:
* “shared library”
* “shared library file”
* dynamic_library_path[2]:
* “dynamically loadable module”
* xfunc-c[3]:
* “dynamically loadable object”
* “shared library”
* “loadable object”
* “loadable object file”
* “object file”
* “dynamically loaded object file”
* pg_config[5]:
* “object code libraries” (static?)
* “dynamically loadable modules”
* PGXS[4]:
* “MODULES”
* “shared-library objects”
* “shared library”

Bonus confusion points to PGXS for MODULEDIR having nothing to do with MODULES.

What is the standard term for these things? Or perhaps, what *should* it be? “Module”? “Library”? “Object”? “Shared ____”? “Dynamic ____”?

Would it be useful to decide on one term (perhaps with “file” appended where it refers to a file that contains one of these things) and standardize the docs?

Confusedly yours,

David

[1]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-load.html
[2]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-client.html#GUC-DYNAMIC-LIBRARY-PATH
[3]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/xfunc-c.html
[4]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/extend-pgxs.html
[5]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/app-pgconfig.html