Re: disable static libraries?

[address@hidden]

>(The .a file is always a static library, right?)

Not on AIX. AIX differentiates between the notion of 'shared object' 
and 'shared library'.

A shared object is a single object file that has the Shared object 
SHROBJ flag in the XCOFF header. A shared object normally has a name of 
the form name.o (and it is archived in the library as such).

A shared library refers to an ar format archive library, where one or 
more of the archive members is a shared object. Note that the library 
can also contain regular, non-shared object files, which are handled in 
the normal way by the linker. A shared library normally has a name of 
the form libname.a, though you can also name it libname.so.

Look for the "Developing and Porting C and C++ Applications on AIX" 
guide on IBM's website. Chapter 2 in particular provides a nice 
introduction to these concepts.


Cheers,
- Matteo