Hi! At least on windows some information that would have been included in a static library is processed and after that discarded by the linker. For example, in a release link of a DLL there are no more symbol names (except for those that are exported - and that only when not importing by ordinal numbers), so it would be impossible to come up again with the signature for a particular (internal) function. I believe ELF keeps symbol names somewhere, but i'm not sure. Anyway i don't think, that a shared library contains all information a static library has. (for example at least the names of the objects containing the various functions are discarded.) Cheers, Markus Thomas Köppe <> wrote: > Brian Dessent wrote: > > > > Tom Browder wrote: > > > >> On Dec 3, 2007 5:21 PM, Thomas Köppe <t.koeppe@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> > >>> [...] > >>> > >>> Suppose I have a dynamic C library libfoo.so (or foo.dll) along > with >>> headers in foo.h. Is it possible to build from the binary a > static >>> library libfoo.a? > >> > >> I believe GNU libtool can be used to do that. > >> [...] > > > > Libtool is useful for creating both shared and static at the same > > (build) time, but it won't let you create a static library from an > > already linked shared library. There is no way to do that, as far > as I > know. You need to recompile from source. > > > > Brian > > I agree that libtool does not deal with binary files in that way; > that's why I was thinking about something from binutils. > > But is there a reason that it should be impossible in principle to > reconstruct a statically linkable object from a shared library? After > all, the code is there, I know the function signatures, and > relocatable addresses can be resolved to fixed addresses at link time. > > Is there an obstruction in principle (that some vital information is > lost in the shared library), or is it simply that no such tool has > been written? > > Many thanks, > > Thomas -- 5. Dezember 2007 Salomon Automation am Schweizer Forum für Logistik, Lausanne, CH Salomon Automation GmbH - Friesachstrasse 15 - A-8114 Friesach bei Graz Sitz der Gesellschaft: Friesach bei Graz UID-NR:ATU28654300 - Firmenbuchnummer: 49324 K Firmenbuchgericht: Landesgericht für Zivilrechtssachen Graz
