Re: trouble statically linking lua 5.0 on Linux

[Peter Shook <pshook@...>]

Ben Sizer wrote:
>  The compilation stage works just fine,
> but the linking stage fails. Here's the command that my makefile emits:
>
> gcc -lcrypt -o progname lua/lib/liblua.a lua/lib/liblualib.a first.o
> second.o (...etc etc...)

Try this:

 gcc -lcrypt -o progname first.o second.o -Llua/lib -llua -llualib

You need to list your object files first and your libs last because gcc 
only remembers the functions that are undefined in the object file, and 
then tries to find them in the libs.  If you specify the libs first, it 
doesn't remember any of those functions and that why it's not working 
for you.  Here is the relevant section from the gcc man page:

-l library

Search the library named library when linking.  (The second
alternative with the library as a separate argument is only for
POSIX compliance and is not recommended.)

It makes a difference where in the command you write this option;
the linker searches and processes libraries and object files in the
order they are specified.  Thus, foo.o -lz bar.o searches library z
after file foo.o but before bar.o.  If bar.o refers to functions in
z, those functions may not be loaded.

The linker searches a standard list of directories for the library,
which is actually a file named liblibrary.a.  The linker then uses
this file as if it had been specified precisely by name.

The directories searched include several standard system
directories plus any that you specify with -L.

Normally the files found this way are library files---archive files
whose members are object files.  The linker handles an archive file
by scanning through it for members which define symbols that have
so far been referenced but not defined.  But if the file that is
found is an ordinary object file, it is linked in the usual
fashion.  The only difference between using an -l option and
specifying a file name is that -l surrounds library with lib and .a
and searches several directories.

- Peter Shook