Can someone please tell me how to create a static library from a .cpp and a .hpp file? Do I need to create the .o and the .a? I would also like to know how can I compile a static library in and use it in other .cpp code. I have header.cpp, header.hpp . I would like to create header.a. Test the header.a in test.cpp. I am using g++ for compiling.
This question is related to
c++
gcc
compiler-construction
g++
Create a .o file:
g++ -c header.cpp
add this file to a library, creating library if necessary:
ar rvs header.a header.o
use library:
g++ main.cpp header.a
Can someone please tell me how to create a static library from a .cpp and a .hpp file? Do I need to create the .o and the the .a?
Yes.
Create the .o (as per normal):
g++ -c header.cpp
Create the archive:
ar rvs header.a header.o
Test:
g++ test.cpp header.a -o executable_name
Note that it seems a bit pointless to make an archive with just one module in it. You could just as easily have written:
g++ test.cpp header.cpp -o executable_name
Still, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that your actual use case is a bit more complex, with more modules.
Hope this helps!
You can create a .a file using the ar utility, like so:
ar crf lib/libHeader.a header.o
lib is a directory that contains all your libraries. it is good practice to organise your code this way and separate the code and the object files. Having everything in one directory generally looks ugly. The above line creates libHeader.a in the directory lib. So, in your current directory, do:
mkdir lib
Then run the above ar command.
When linking all libraries, you can do it like so:
g++ test.o -L./lib -lHeader -o test
The -L flag will get g++ to add the lib/ directory to the path. This way, g++ knows what directory to search when looking for libHeader. -llibHeader flags the specific library to link.
where test.o is created like so:
g++ -c test.cpp -o test.o
Source: Stackoverflow.com