g++ linker: force static linking if static library exists?

Question

I've a program which links to many libraries. g++, by default, prefers to link to shared libraries, even if the corresponding archive exists.

How can I change this preference to prefer static archives over dynamic libraries, if a static archive exists?

Note, I used -static option, but it tries to find static archive for all libraries which is not what I want.

Solution 1

g++ -Wl,-Bstatic -lz -lfoo -Wl,-Bdynamic -lbar -Wl,--as-needed

Will link zlib and libfoo as static, and libbar as dynamic . --as-needed will drop any unused dynamic library.

Solution 2

When you only want to statically link one or two libraries with the rest, including system libraries, being dynamic, it is often easier to simply reference the static library by its full name. I.e. rather than use -l and -L to get g++ to resolve a library from what it finds, simpy add the full path to the library as an input. Taking the g++ command above, to link a main.o application main program to static libz and libfoo and dynamic libbar and libglib etc. :

    g++ main.o /usr/lib/libz.a /usr/lib/libfoo.a -lbar

Edit 3 Aug 17: I've just tripped across this answer which goes into more detail and offers an alternative way (-l:) to specify the library directly.