Re: [Boost-build] MinGW: .lib rather than .a?

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-04-07 04:15:22

On Monday 07 April 2008 11:45:50 you wrote:
> On Friday 22 February 2008 21:56:41 Edd Dawson wrote:
> > Vladimir Prus wrote:
> > > Edd Dawson wrote:
> > 
> > > Can you clarify? It is believed that the search rules for mingw are as
> > > below, and therefore .lib files should be found.
> > > 
> > >         # windows (mingw,cygwin) -Bstatic -lxxx
> > >         #    libxxx.a
> > >         #    xxx.lib
> > >         #
> > >         # windows (mingw,cygwin) -Bdynamic -lxxx
> > >         #    libxxx.dll.a
> > >         #    xxx.dll.a
> > >         #    libxxx.a
> > >         #    xxx.lib
> > >         #    cygxxx.dll (*)
> > >         #    libxxx.dll
> > >         #    xxx.dll
> > >         #    libxxx.a
> > 
> > P:\guff\mingw_bb>dir
> >   Volume in drive P has no label.
> >   Volume Serial Number is 9C8D-CEF7
> > 
> >   Directory of P:\guff\mingw_bb
> > 
> > 22/02/2008  18:51    <DIR>          .
> > 22/02/2008  18:51    <DIR>          ..
> > 22/02/2008  18:38                15 main.cpp
> >                 1 File(s)             15 bytes
> >                 2 Dir(s)  43,348,398,080 bytes free
> > 
> > P:\guff\mingw_bb>dir P:\boost\boost-1_35\lib\libboost_thread*
> >   Volume in drive P has no label.
> >   Volume Serial Number is 9C8D-CEF7
> > 
> >   Directory of P:\boost\boost-1_35\lib
> > 
> > 22/02/2008  17:28            81,608 libboost_thread-mgw42-mt-1_35.lib
> > 22/02/2008  18:21           547,454 libboost_thread-mgw42-mt-sd-1_35.lib
> > 22/02/2008  17:28            81,608 libboost_thread-mgw42-mt.lib
> >                 3 File(s)        710,670 bytes
> >                 0 Dir(s)  43,348,398,080 bytes free
> > 
> > P:\guff\mingw_bb>type main.cpp
> > int main() { }
> > 
> > P:\guff\mingw_bb>g++ -c main.cpp -o main.o
> > 
> > P:\guff\mingw_bb>g++ main.o -o app -LP:\boost\boost-1_35\lib 
> > -lboost_thread-mgw42-mt-1_35
> > C:\development\MinGW\4.2.1-dw2-2\bin/ld.exe: cannot find 
> > -lboost_thread-mgw42-mt-1_35
> > collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
> > 
> > P:\guff\mingw_bb>
> > 
> > 
> > I happen to be using a pre-release build of MinGW, here, but the same applies to 
> > the current 3.4.5 release.
> > 
> > If I rename the library from .lib to .a, things work fine.
> 
> Roland,
> can you comment if the above is some issue with recent mingw, or improper usage?

Nevermind. Roland has already replied, and I've missed the reply. The answer is that
on mingw, to find libfoo.lib one should use

        -llibfoo

on the command line.

- Volodya