Hi,

I need to statically link a shared library, so that I may distribute the binary without having to bundle in the lib as well.
I am trying to use the "-static" flag but when I do so the library does not get linked at all.
Am using gcc for linking. Running it on linux 2.6.18-92.el5.

Also, How do I force the linker to pick up the .a instead of the .so?
Any help will be much appreciated.

Are you using autotools?

No, am not.

Could you please post the gcc command you are using?

You can't statically link shared library (or dynamically link static)

Flag -static will force linker to use static library (.a) instead of shared (.so)
But. Static libraries not always installed by default. So if you need static link you have to install static libraries.

Another possible approach is use statifier (http:/statifier.sf.net) or Ermine (http://magicErmine.com)
Both tools take as input dynamically linked executable and as output create self-contained executable with all shared libraries embedded.

Statifier is free (licensed under GPL), Ermine is commercial, but it behaves better on systems with memory randomization. Here is theirs comparison:
http://www.magicermine.com/products....ure_comparison

one thing you can do is, for what ever the libraries you are using, create static libraries while 'make'. install them and use those static libraries.

@Agrouf:

The command I'm using is something like :
gcc -static -D<symbols> -L<libpath1> -L<libpath2> <list of objs> -o <executable>

@Valery:

The library I am using has both .a and .so versions in the same folder. But -static is not forcing the linker to pick up the .a version.

Will try statifier and see if it solves the issue!

@Lokesh:
the static version of the lib is already present. But the .so is being picked up all the time.

@all
Is there any gcc flag that lets us specify the library with extention?

Thanks for all the help!

I don't think so. because as per my knowledge goes, compiler by default picks only the static if it exists. If it not exists then only it looks for shared object.

post the names of the static and shared object libraries

-static-libgcc

look at this option in the man gcc.