Can I save a C static library anywhere I want? - c

I have created a library in C and want to link it when compiled. Do I have to save in a certain folder in my computer's file system or can I create my own file structure within my application to save it?
Update: My error turned out to be not properly including a header file. My files and linker were fine but it was simple syntax error.

You can save it wherever you want. Just make sure that the compiler knows the location. In the case of gcc for example, you can use:
gcc -L path/to/libdir -l:mylib.a ...
(assuming mylib.a is in path/to/libdir)
Or even:
gcc path/to/libdir/mylib.a ...

Related

How do I link a compiled ".so" library with Scons?

I have an existing .so library (libgit2), and I would like to use this within a C program (the build system is Scons). I read through the entirety of the Scons documentation for "Chapter 4. Building and Linking with Libraries", but there is no mention of how to use an existing .so library. The only mention of .so in the entirety of chapter 4 is on the first page, and it is only about Scons using a .so file for output. How do I use an existing compiled .so library in Scons?
If you are using an sconscript then you should add a LIBS= arguments and a LIBS_PATH=.
if you want to directly add it to the build line, use -L for lib path and -l to link a lib.
You can find further information here: https://scons.org/doc/0.97/HTML/scons-user/x628.html
With help from the SCons Discord server and other places, I've gotten farther than when I first posted this question. I haven't solved my specific problem of using .so libraries with GDNative, but I think I've figured out the SCons side.
As of me posting this question, the SConstruct file was able to compile working code if I didn't use libgit2 and instead just printed out the text. With only the header included, my test call to git_libgit2_version compiled but didn't run, as Godot said undefined symbol: git_libgit2_version.
First of all, you need to add the named parameter for LIBS to your env.SharedLibrary or env.Program line. The lib prefix and .so suffix seem to be added automatically, I still haven't figured out how to make it point to libgit2.so.1.0.1 (so for now I have the library copied and named as libgit2.so, but I would like to have it point to libgit2.so.1.0.1 eventually instead). Also, the SCons team suggested adding LIBPATH, but this doesn't seem to actually do anything.
library = env.SharedLibrary(target=env["target_path"] + env["target_name"] , source=sources, LIBS=['git2'])
Then, the SConstruct file needs to have this magic line:
env['STATIC_AND_SHARED_OBJECTS_ARE_THE_SAME'] = 1
With the above code, ldd will report not found, and Godot will say Error: libgit2.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (I have no idea why it's asking for .so.1.0 instead of the .so or .so.1.0.1 file, and yes I tried copying and naming as libgit2.so.1.0 and that doesn't change anything either).
I also added this, which was suggested by another GDNative user.
env.Append(LINKFLAGS=[
'-Wl,-rpath,addons/git_for_godot/gdnative/linuxbsd'
])
With all of the above code, this seems to allow ldd and Godot to find the library just fine with a relative path (when running ldd you have to be cd'd into the project folder). I can run the project fine without any errors, but the project crashes immediately after opening, with no error messages printed. If I comment out the call to git_libgit2_version but keep the header included, the file does compile and run. Any time I try to call anything from libgit2 it causes Godot to crash without printing any errors. At this point I'm stuck and I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
I did try adding libgit2 to the Dependencies section of the .gdnlib file, but this doesn't seem to affect anything. Another thing I tried which didn't work is this line (+ variants on the extension) which append to the sources list passed as the named source parameter. I'll post it here for completeness, but for the moment I have this line commented out because it doesn't work:
sources.append(File("project/addons/git_for_godot/gdnative/linuxbsd/libgit2.so"))

How come when I try to compile my C program by making a file named for the program it creates an application for it?

I once tried to compile a C program I made that was for a chess game (thanks to YouTube's Bluefever Software for the tutorial), but when I went to compile the program, I executed this line of code:
C:\TDM-GCC-64\>gcc Chess/chess.c Chess/init.c -o chess
The compiling worked (there were no syntax errors or anything), but when I got to my file directory, I saw this (circled in blue):
An unexpected application (but there were no viruses!):
How did this happen? It may had something to do with the line I was compiling, but what is the "intel" behind this?
It is normal for the compiler to generate an application!
What is surprising is the location for the executable, it should have been generated in the parent directory:
C:\TDM-GCC-64\> gcc Chess/chess.c Chess/init.c -o chess
The explanation is interesting:
You are using the Windows operating system, where the filenames are case insensitive.
You instructed gcc to generate the executable into chess, but this is the name of the Chess directory. In this case, gcc generates the executable in the named directory and gives it a name that is the basename of the first source file chess.c -> chess.
Furthermore, the application name really is chess.exe in Windows, but the default setting for the file manager is to not display file extensions. This is a very unfortunate choice. I suggest you change this setting in the Windows/File Explorer Options window to always show file extensions. This will allow you to distinguish chess.c, chess.exe and chess.h more easily.
You have a Makefile in the Chess directory, you should use the make command to build the executable:
C:\TDM-GCC-64\> make -C Chess
Or simply cd to the Chess subdirectory and type:
C:\TDM-GCC-64\Chess> make
That's the file you told the compiler to make.
The -o option to gcc is the output file. In this case, you told it to create an executable file named chess. And that's exactly what was created.
The compiler is automatically creating an executable file while compiling.

Adding custom path to gcc command

i know there a a few posts already about this but I do not seem to be able to get it right.
I am working on a shared project using geany and gcc. The file structure looks something like this:
`/Documents/.../project/ main directory of project with makefile`
`/Documents/.../project/src here are some sourcefiles and headers`
`/Documents/.../project/src/extended here are some other source and header files`
`/Documents/.../project/src/tools other header and source files`
now lets say I am working on a sourcefile in /tools that includes from extened with
#include"/extended/some_header.h"
because my makefile is configured to search for files from /src. However when I am trying to compile the file I am working on right now (by using geany compile option which just calls gcc) I cannot compile it obviously because it cannot find /extended/some_header.h in the /src folder. I have tried adding
-iquotes/Documents/.../project/src
to the gcc call by geany but it doesn't work either.
The -I flag tells the gcc compiler where it should look for the header files. Passing the -Idir to the compiler is appending the dir path to the head of the search list, effectively making this path higher priority than the previously (or system) defined paths. As for the source path - there is no such an option for gcc itself. Each source file passed to the compiler has to have it's path (absolute or relative). In order to work it around, a Makefile can be provided, defining a list of files to be compiled.

Statically linking libclang in C code

I'm trying to write a simple syntax checker for C code using the frontend available in libclang. Due to deployment concerns, I need to be able to statically link all the libraries in libclang, and not pass around the .so file that has all the libraries.
I'm building clang/llvm from source, and in llvm/Release+Asserts/lib I have a bunch of .a files that I think I should be able to use, but it never seems to work (the linker spews out thousands of errors about missing symbols). However, when I compile it using the libclang.so also present in that directory as follows:
clang main.c -o bin/dlc -I../llvm/tools/clang/include -L../llvm/Release+Asserts/lib/ -lclang
Everything seems to work well.
What is the minimum set of .a files I need to include to make this work? I've tried including absolutely all of the .a files in the build output directory, with them provided to clang/gcc in different orders, without any success. I only need the functions mentioned in libclang's Index.h, but there don't seem to be any resources or documentation on what the various libclang*.a files are for. It would be very helpful to know which files libclang.so pulls in.
The following is supposed to work, as long the whole project has all static libraries (I counted 116 in my Release/lib directory).
clang main.c -o bin/dlc -I../llvm/tools/clang/include ../llvm/Release/lib/*.a
[edit: clang main.c -o bin/dlc -I../llvm/tools/clang/include ../llvm/Release/lib/libclang.a ../llvm/Release/lib/*.a]
Note that the output binary is not static, so you don't need any -static flag for gcc or ld, if you're using this syntax.
If that doesn't work you might need to list the libraries in order: if some library requires a function available in another library, then it may be necessary to list it first in the command line. See comments about link order at:
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.7.2/gcc/Link-Options.html#Link-Options

Including a library (lsusb) in a C program

I am still fairly new to programming with C and I am working on a program where I want to control the power to various ports on a hub I have. That is, however, not the issue I am having right now.
I found a program online that does what I want I am trying to compile it. However it uses #include<lsusb.h>. lsusb is located in a totally different folder than the file I am wanting to run (and not in a sub folder) and when I try to compile it, I, logically enough, get the error that the file lsusb.h is not found.
How can I link to this file so that it can be found?
This is more of a GCC toolchain question than a C question (although most C compilers do use the same Unixy flags).
The braces around the include file (<>) indicate you want the compiler to search its standard search path for the include file. So you can get access to that new include file either by putting it into a directory on your standard include file search path yourself, or by adding its directory to the file search path. With GCC you do the latter by giving gcc the flag -I"directoryname" where "directoryname" is the full file path to where you are keeping that new include file of yours.
Once your compiler finds it, your linker may have the exact same problem with the library file itself ("liblsusb.a"?). You fix that the same way. The flag GCC's linker will want is -L instead of -I.
See the "-I" parameter in the gcc man page. It allows you specify a directory in which to find a header file. See also -l and -L.
Or try #include "../../path_to_the_file/lsusb.h"

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