ok to add -fPIC to non shared library?

[Tim Pushor]

Hi everyone,

I'll cut to the chase - is it ok to include -fPIC compiling C code to be 
included in a static library?

Now the background:

I have a (largish) software package that I maintain that I'd like to 
build a shared library out of. The current build process builds a bunch 
of static libraries, and then compiles and links the main executable 
against them to generate the runnable binaries. I want to take these 
static libraries, and combine them all into one shared library. I don't 
necessarily want to change the build process for the software package 
(i.e. I still want the generated binaries statically linked), but I want 
to make the contents of the static libraries available via a shared library.

I am using Linux (Currently CentOS 5) and GCC 4.1.2. I've changed the 
Makefiles to include -fPIC and built the software. Everything builds and 
appears to work properly. I then take the static libraries (that were 
compiled with -fPIC and created with ar) and take them apart (with ar) 
and use gcc -shared to create a static lib. This all seems to work fine.

Did I explain this sufficiently?

Thanks for any and all insight!
Tim