Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 10:49:41 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Skye <s_c AT geocities DOT com>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Can't link non standard library. FAQ not enough.
In-Reply-To: <334156A0.2FD@iname.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970402104854.23151H-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, Skye wrote:

> gcc -c libtest.cc -o libtest.a
> 
> [copy libtest.a file to djgpp\lib dir]
> 
> the program is: prog.cc [includes libtest.h]
> 
> gcc -c prog.cc -o prog.o
> gxx -o prog.exe prog.o -ltest
> [run prog.exe and it should work]

It might work for you, but it's sure an incorrect way to do that!  The
.a suffix is for object *libraries*, not object *files*.  Telling gcc
to put the object code into libtest.a doesn't make libtest.a a
library, it is still an object file, albeit renamed.  Libraries should
be created and maintained using the `ar' program.  Here's how you
create a library with a single object file in it:

	gcc -c libtest.cc -o libtest.o
	ar rvs c:/djgpp/lib/libtest.a libtest.o

(of course, use your pathname of DJGPP lib directory instead of
c:/djgpp/lib).  Note that you can omit the "-o libtest.o" part, gcc
does this by default anyway.

And here's how you put more than one object file into a library:

	gcc -c libt1.cc
	gcc -c libt2.cc
	gcc -c libt3.cc
	ar rvs c:/djgpp/lib/libtest.a libt1.o libt2.o libt3.o

If you want to know how to maintain object libraries, and what that
`rvs' thing on the `ar' command line is, please read the docs of `ar';
you can't *really* expect to understand this without reading the docs,
can you?.  Here's how to read the docs of `ar':

		info binutils ar