如何使用 MinGW 在 Windows 机器上处理 are.a 文件

Question

I've seen from resources that .a files are static library files for UNIX Systems, and that .lib files are the equivalent but for UNIX systems. I'm beginning to try to import libraries in projects and saw that for SDL2 specifically, there are.a files that I include with my linking commands with minGW is there something under the hood that is going on for these files to be read and used on a Windows machine?

I've linkedthese successfully (and not-so-successfully a few hours ago),but this bugged me so I wanted to ask you all:)

Answer 1

On Windows machines using MinGW, .a files (also known as static library files) are handled by the linker (ld.exe) during the linking stage of the compilation process. The linker takes the object files (.o) generated by the compiler (gcc.exe) and combines them with the code and data stored in the.a files to create a single executable file. The linker also resolves any symbol references between the object files and the library code and data.