Question

I have been trying to get this working for a while now and am unable to find an answer elsewhere, here is my problem.

When I make a static library in Visual C++ any dependencies that this library uses are carried on to the executable program that I link the library to. Here is an example

Test.lib depends on
– SDL
– OpenGL

TestApp.exe links Test.lib

In Visual C++ I do not have to add the dependencies for Test.lib in my TestApp executable, they are carried over and it works great.

However when I port my code to Linux g++ (With the Code::Blocks IDE), if I make a Static Library which is .a in g++, and I make a TestApp that links the library, it gets undefined references to the dependencies.

Is g++ able to do this, and if so what am I missing to have the dependencies carried over to my executable?

As for my settings for my library I simply use the IDE’s Static Library setting.

Answer 1

With Microsoft’s compiler, header files can have library dependency information in them (source files, too, but this is typically done in headers); this gets compiled into the object file, and the linker understands and applies that information. That can be handy: you don’t have to remember long, funky names, and if you compile two source files with incompatible options you may get a library name conflict that the linker will complain about. Most compilers and linkers don’t do this kind of thing, and you have to tell the linker explicitly which libraries you want to link with.