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Shared libraries in AIX have the extension .a. How is a static library
named in AIX.

On 2005-11-28, smiletolead <developeratca@gmail.com> wrote:
> Shared libraries in AIX have the extension .a. How is a static library
> named in AIX.
>

Shared libraries have the extension of .so (shared object).
Libraries used to compile applications have the extension .a (archive).

Mike

Could you please explain in detail?

"smiletolead" <developeratca@gmail.com> writes:

> Shared libraries in AIX have the extension .a. How is a static library
> named in AIX.

Also with .a extension.

On aix, shared library name (encoded into the Loader section)
is a *combination* of library name + member name, and archive
libraries can contain a mixture of "regular" and "shared" objects
(and a mixture of 32 and 64-bit objects).

For example, /usr/lib/libc.a contains:
frexp.o - regular object
itrunc.o - regular object
shr.o - shared object
....
frexp_64.o - regular 64-bit object
itrunc_64.o - regular 64-bit object
shr_64.o - shared 64-bit object.

A 64-bit application would normally depend on "libc.a(shr_64.o)"
shared library.

Cheers,
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Are there static libraries in AIX?

"smiletolead" <developeratca@gmail.com> writes:

> Are there static libraries in AIX?

Depends on what you call a "static library".

If you define it as "archive library" (i.e. manipulated by 'ar' and
having a structure defined in /usr/include/ar.h), then /usr/lib/libc.a
is a static library (containing shared objects inside).

Other archive libraries, e.g. /usr/lib/libm.a contain no shared
objects inside, and act almost exactly the same as archive libraries
on other UNIX systems.

Cheers,
--
In order to understand recursion you must first understand recursion.
Remove /-nsp/ for email.

..a = static library -- linker copies code into executable
..so = shared (dynamic) library

rs.canada@gmail.com wrote:
> .a = static library -- linker copies code into executable
> .so = shared (dynamic) library

No.

Laurenz Albe

rs.canada@gmail.com wrote:
> .a = static library -- linker copies code into executable
> .so = shared (dynamic) library
>

As Lawrence stated, this is incorrect. Conventionally speaking,
an archive has an extension of ".a"; it can be used to collect
files of any type. Conveniently, it has been used to contain
object code (with supporting symbol tables), and the linker knows
how to access it.

On AIX, archives can contain both static and dynamic object code.
It's still an archive, but the linker will either pull out static
object code (as required) or create references to dynamic object
files (which we like to call "modules" on AIX). There's a
naming convention for these archive members (shr.o, etc) but
there's no requirement that they be named thusly. You can also
name a shared module "libfoo.a" on AIX, and the linker will
do the right thing. That doesn't make it an archive, however.

You can also have shared modules be separate files, and use
".so", ".dll", or whatever for a suffix. And use
-blibsuff:<extension> when linking to tell the linker how to
interpret -l options.

I think there's so more info in
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/es...dfs/aix_ll.pdf

HTH

I have the library libxml2.a. I have renamed it as libxml2.so. I want
to build another library
that links with this library. Can I link with libml2.so using -l option?