Question

I have been facing difficulties, now and then, linking my C++ projects with external libraries (e.g. Boost, wxWidgets, Gtkmm). Is there a way to incorporate these external libraries into the compiler (GNU G++ in my case, winXP SP3) so that the compiler can take them as part of it just like with C++ STL?

Answer 1

To link with a library (Taking example of Boost Libs and g++ compiler):

Compiling the source with correct include files

1) g++ -I /path/to/boost_dir -c code.cpp

2) g++ -L/path/to/your/boost/shared/libs -lboost_regex -o executable code.o

For the linking part I have taken example of boost regex library

A full example ::
1) Consider your boost directory is at /usr/include/boost.
2)within this we have multiple header files and directories, So if you want to use the lambda functionality of boost, then include it in your code as below::

#include&lt boost/lambda.hpp &gt
#include&lt boost/regex &gt
using namespace boost::lambda;

3) Compile as "g++ -I /usr/include -c code.cpp"
Then 
4) g++ -L /usr/lib -lboost_regex -o executable code.o

I have assumed that the boost shared objects are present at /usr/lib path.