Re: Patchless modification of Lua source code

[Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo <lhf@...>]

> The suggestion that the linker can do the work without the need for
> patching the Lua core is due to Luiz.

That has been my experience in many years without exception.

The C standard is talking about the definition of symbols but it never
mentions a linker or how it should work, AFAIR. The linker is just
implementing the requirements in the C standard in a reasonable and
convenient way: it resolves symbols as it sees definitions for them. A
library is not meant to be totally incorporated into the program; only
modules that provide definitions for the program are incorporated.
Again, this is reasonable and convenient, and works extremely well in
practice. It has been like that for many decades.