Static archives
The Unix ar writer normalizes metadata, canonicalizes member order, and carries a symbol index.
DByte 12.0 · Toolchain
Contract§
Use --emit staticlib for deterministic libraries.
Mechanics§
The Unix ar writer normalizes member metadata, orders members canonically and emits a symbol index. Linking extracts members by unresolved-symbol demand until a fixed point.
Validation and failure§
Duplicate members, malformed headers, invalid ranges and symbol-index disagreement fail closed. Archive iteration order cannot depend on host hash maps.
Evidence and boundary§
Double-build hashes plus one/two/multi-member extraction tests prove stable bytes and symbol-driven selection.