Question

Say I have libA. It depends on, for example, libSomething for the simple fact that a non-inline method of libA makes a call to a method in libSomething.h. How does the dependency link up in this case? Does libA have to statically link to libSomething when it is compiled, or will a user of libA (an application using libA) need to link to both libA and libSomething?

Thanks

Answer 1

Static linking is just copying the whole items (functions, constants, etc) into the resulting executable. If a static library’s code contains references to some shared library items, these references will become dependencies in the resulting executable. The same holds if you link a library instead of executable.

This thread discusses how it happens in Linux.