How to link with C static library ?

[leonsal]

The documentation explains how to link with C dynamic libraries by using for example:

#flag -lsqlite
#include "sqlite3.h"
#flag -L lib_path

How to link with a static C library ?
Does it need to be passed through the command line ?
Regards.

[kevinmatthes]

@leonsal

I think I found a solution; at least I got the following small example working:

// test.c
int test(void) {
    return 42;
}

// test.h
extern int test(void);

Now, I compiled and bound test.c as follows:

gcc -c -std=c99 -Wall -Werror -Wextra -Wpedantic test.c
ar rs libtest.a test.o

To make sure that neither the C file nor its object code would be called from V, I removed both the test.c and test.o.

// test.v
#flag -ltest
#flag -L.
#flag -I .
#include "test.h"

fn C.test() int

fn main() {
        println('${C.test()}')
}

And finally, I compiled the test.v with v test.v which gave me the executable ./test; running ./test will print the expectation: 42.

[kevinmatthes]

@leonsal

Compared to your suggestion in your initial comment, I needed to add the include flag -I . to ensure the header file being found. Apart from that detail, the small example I posted looks similar to the documentation. I assume that this include flag should be the major difference when calling a static library rather to a dynamic / shared one.

[JalonSolov]

Since you're not doing a #include in the .c file, the C compiler doesn't look for the .h file at all. If you did have a #include <somefile.h>, you might need an extra compiler flag there, as well.