Difference b/w .dll and .exe file

[ITlover]

Hello,

Is their any difference between dll(dynamic link liberary) and exe file or both are similar?

Is dll file also an exe file?

[TwoRails]

An exe is an executable file and can run on it's own, and it may (or may not) call routines in another file. Those files are Dynamic Link Library(ies), which can not run on their own. DLLs are basically reusable code so common routines can be put in them so the different programs don't get bloated by having to contain all the shared stuff.

[ITlover]

I understand what u r saying,but what do u mean by routines?

[alfie2]

explained quite well, here:

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/routine.html

[TwoRails]

alfie2's link explains it well. Some examples are if you wrote a program that part of the program would check dates, you'd put the date-checking code into a seperate routine so it could be "called" from anywhere in the program. You might have multiple routines to check date: one for if the date is in a range, and another to check how long it's been compared to another date.

Now let's say you wrote multiple programs that each needed to check for dates. You'd put those date routines into a DLL so all programs could access them, and the programs would each be that much smaller. Another benifit of a DLL is that if you wanted to make changes, you only have to change the DLL, not the 10 programs that "call" the DLL.