Extract static object from dynamic one

[Thomas Köppe]

Brian Dessent wrote:
 >
 > Tom Browder wrote:
 >
 >> On Dec 3, 2007 5:21 PM, Thomas Köppe <t.koeppe@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
 >>
 >>> [...]
 >>>
 >>> Suppose I have a dynamic C library libfoo.so (or foo.dll) along with
 >>> headers in foo.h. Is it possible to build from the binary a static
 >>> library libfoo.a?
 >>
 >> I believe GNU libtool can be used to do that.
 >> [...]
 >
 > Libtool is useful for creating both shared and static at the same
 > (build) time, but it won't let you create a static library from an
 > already linked shared library.  There is no way to do that, as far as I
 > know.  You need to recompile from source.
 >
 > Brian

I agree that libtool does not deal with binary files in that way; that's 
why I was thinking about something from binutils.

But is there a reason that it should be impossible in principle to 
reconstruct a statically linkable object from a shared library? After 
all, the code is there, I know the function signatures, and relocatable 
addresses can be resolved to fixed addresses at link time.

Is there an obstruction in principle (that some vital information is 
lost in the shared library), or is it simply that no such tool has been 
written?

Many thanks,

Thomas