Hi again. Free, solid tool to make static libraries? I'm looking for a free, mainstream(by this i mean, something that lots of ppl use), stable, static lib compiler. I use the Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 to compile most of my c/c++ code, and it was fine until i tried to compile a static lib with it, i was told that i needed a tool, lib32.exe, wich suposedly comes with Visual Studio, but doesn't come with either the Windows Platform SDK nor the Visual C++ Toolkit 2003. So, if you know of some tool to do this, maybe distributed in some service pack that i overlooked, or in some SDK i don't have yet, or something else, please share it. =) Thank you.

There is no such thing as a standard program to make static libraries because each linker has its own format that it expects.

Also, the program you are looking for is called 'lib.exe' I believe and not *32 because I have MSVC.Net and I don't have a lib32.exe

I'm surprised to see the toolkit doesn't have the lib tool, but I'm not sure what you could do about it besides buying the compiler or switching entirely to a free system (like gcc and friends).

I don't understand something... I though static libs could be used to share code with other coders possibly using other compilers/linkers, if there is no standard how is that possible?

Quote:Original post by White Rabbit
I don't understand something... I though static libs could be used to share code with other coders possibly using other compilers/linkers, if there is no standard how is that possible?

Nope, static libraries are only for sharing code between projects, not between different compiler/linkers.

I could be mistaken, and maybe there are standards now, but 4 years ago every compiler/linker pair had its own formats for libs, object files, etc etc