Re: selective static linking

[Kai Ruottu <kai dot ruottu at wippies dot com>]

Marian Ciobanu wrote:
> Hi,
>
> When building an executable on Linux I'd like to link statically a particular library, namely Boost Serialization, while keeping the other libraries linked dynamically. Both libboost_serialization.a and libboost_serializationso exist. I tried to play with the -l parameter, passing the actual file name or including the full path, but these didn't help.
>
> Well, I have a workaround: rename libboost_serialization.a as libyyy.a and then use -lyyy instead of -lboost_serialization ; however, I wonder what the real solution is.
>   

What about opening the GNU manual(s) ?

http://www.gnu.org/manual/manual.html

Maybe you have already done this with the GCC one but that is wrong 
manual for this problem :(
GCC gives some options to the linker as default, others one should 
decide oneself.  There is that
GCC-option '-Wl,<linker_option(s)>'  for this "giving extra options for 
the linker ('ld')" purpose.
In order to learn those linker options one needs the GNU 'ld' manual !

Somewhere there should be printable PDF-versions for the GNU manuals, I 
could now find
only the online HTML-manuals for binutils, the 'ld' options could be 
found via :

http://sourceware.org/binutils/docs/ld/Options.html#Options

Ok, the '-Bstatic' and '-Bdynamic' options would be for this, "wrapping" 
the '-l<libname>'
with these, in your case :

  ...  -Wl,-Bstatic -llibboost_serialization -Wl,-Bdynamic ....

meaning "switch static linking on", link against the static version, 
"return back to shared defaults"....