Say I had a library called libfoo which contained a class, a few static variables, possibly something with 'C' linkage, and a few other functions. Now I have a main program which looks like this: int main() { return 5+5; } When I compile and link this, I link against libfoo. Will this have any effect? Will my executable increase in size? If so, why? Do the static variables or their addresses get copied into my executable? Apologies if there is a similar question to this or if I'm being particularly stupid in any way.