SPRAB89A September 2011 – March 2014
Executables may depend on libraries, which may in turn depend on other libraries. These dependencies are encoded into DT_NEEDED entries in the dynamic section. When an executable or library depends on another library, the dependent library is named by a DT_NEEDED entry in the referrer's dynamic section. The dynamic linker must find the dependent library and load it as described in Section 14.3.
Some platforms, such as Linux, have a standardized search mechanism for finding dependent libraries, for example the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, as described in the System V ABI. Bare-metal platforms have no standardized guidelines. In any case, symbol resolution proceeds in the breadth-first fashion described in the System V ABI.