Hey guys, me again. I realise this may be a ridiculous question, but I've never really thought about it until now. Let's start with a little context. I have a project where I have used the MySQL development files so that's the Include and Lib files. I have also used a library (MySQL++), again Include and Lib files. When compiling the entire project, what's the difference? It's confused me a little bit, because I already have a mysql and mysql++ dll that links with the executable. I'm just not 100% on the difference between include and lib files. My idea, at the moment is that the include files are necessary to avoid compile time errors (header not found etc) and when the files are being linked together the linker uses the lib files to link everything together. Hopefully, I'm on the right lines somewhat. Cheers guys. Ray

Cheers mate, that helped a lot :)

Indeed, the lib files are like a compiled replacement for the source (.c/.cpp) files.
So you can replace the lib with the source files which generated it. It's usually not a good idea, though, but I think it's something worth of knowing.