如何在C中构建和链接外部跨平台库？

Question

I am relatively new to C and I'm making a project that I wish to be cross platform. I want to use an external library that has sworn to be cross platform as well. I am wondering how I should include this within my project?

From what I can understand, I have two options. Build the libraries before hand on every platform I wish to use, then handle which library is linked within my build process (not very platform independent). Or I can include the entire source of the library and build it along with my project.

Are these my only options for handling cross platform libraries? Maybe I am not understanding how the process completely works yet, so any help would be awesome!

(PS I'm using CMake to build my project.)

Thanks!

Answer 1

There are several factors and their combinations that may affect the answer.

• The external library can be either static or shared.
• The build is intended for internal testing or for release.
• The application source code with autoconf stuff is distributed or binary application is distributed.
• The external library source code with own autoconf stuff is distributed or binary shared library is distributed.

When you want to distribute binary application then it is better to use the static external library. In this case you only have the options written above. You can either build the library before hand for each platform or incorporate the library build to your building process.

If the external library and the application are open source and they are distributed with own autoconf stuff then you do not need to distribute the external library and you can just add an autoconf dependency.