How to include static library in makefile-Collection of common programming errors

3 years ago
admin
2 minutes

  • use

    LDFLAGS= -L -l

    Like :

    LDFLAGS = -L. -lmine

    for ensuring static compilation you can also add

    LDFLAGS = -static

    Or you can just get rid of the whole library searching, and link with with it directly.

    say you have main.c fun.c

    and a static library libmine.a

    then you can just do in your final link line of the Makefile

    $(CC) $(CFLAGS) main.o fun.o libmine.a

  • Make sure that the -L option appears ahead of the -l option; the order of options in linker command lines does matter, especially with static libraries. The -L option specifies a directory to be searched for libraries (static or shared). The -lname option specifies a library which is with libmine.a (static) or libmine.so (shared on most variants of Unix, but Mac OS X uses .dylib and HP-UX used to use .sl). Conventionally, a static library will be in a file libmine.a. This is convention, not mandatory, but if the name is not in the libmine.a format, you cannot use the -lmine notation to find it; you must list it explicitly on the compiler (linker) command line.

    The -L./libmine option says “there is a sub-directory called libmine which can be searched to find libraries”. I can see three possibilities:

    1. You have such a sub-directory containing libmine.a, in which case you also need to add -lmine to the linker line (after the object files that reference the library).
    2. You have a file libmine that is a static archive, in which case you simply list it as a file ./libmine with no -L in front. Aga
    3. You have a file libmine.a in the current directory that you want to pick up. You can either write ./libmine.a or -L . -lmine and both should find the library.

  • The -L merely gives the path where to find the .a or .so file. What you’re looking for is to add -lmine to the LIBS variable.

    Make that -static -lmine to force it to pick the static library (in case both static and dynamic library exist).

Originally posted 2013-11-09 22:41:13.