There's something i'm confused about.

["Julia Smith" <julias at macrovision dot com>]

If I compile a .class or .java to a .o, how come ar cannot accept the file generated?

If I produce a simple .c file and compile that I get the same problem.

Why does ar (a gnu one at that) not take the default output of gcc or any of its variants?

I am still running into considerable problems linking. It seems like .classes in .jars are not always properly located, so if I compile like so:

gcj -classpath ./classes:jars/bcjars.jar:xalan.jar:<stdlib>

I *still* get numerous linker errors declaring that <some-class-in-one-of-the-jars> is undefined. I cannot build .o's and link against them because of the ar problem. I would have too man .o's to link against directly on the command line. Incremental .o's seem out of the question as well.