What is Symbol Resolution?

Question

This seems to be one of those things that every talks about but no one defines...I can\'t seem to find any information on this topic. What is symbol resolution? This is the

Answer 1

As mentioned, it can refer to run-time or link-time symbol resolution. However you shouldn't forget compile-time symbol resolution.

This is the rules a language uses to map symbols to "things". Symbols being just about anything that looks like a name (local, members and global variables, functions, methods, types, etc.) and "things" being the compilers understanding of what the name refers to.

The rules for doing this can be fairly simple (for instance, IIRC in C it's little more than an ordered list of places to look) or complex (C++ has all sorts of case with overloading, templates and whatnot). Generally, these rules interact with the semantics of the program and sometimes they can even result in (potentially) ambiguities:

C++:

int First(int i) { return i; }
float First(float f) { return f; }

void Second(int (*fn)(int)) { printf("int"); }
void Second(float (*fn)(float); { printf("float"); }

...

Second(&First); // What will be printed?