Force static linking of library linked to Xcode target?

Question

My Xcode target links against hdf5 library (using the Link Binary with Libraries build phase). libhdf5 is installed using MacPorts, thus /opt/local/lib contains both the dyn

Answer 1

My case with Xcode 4.5:

When I drag and drop a static C library (a 3rd party library compiled with GNU Autotools) to project's frameworks (Project Navigator > Frameworks) the linker seems to thinks that's a dynamic library and adds -L -l flags:

-L/path/to/libfoodir -lfoo

The linking fails because there is no /path/to/libfoodir/libfoo.dylib. The linker command can be seen from:

Log Navigator > select a Build log > select a Link line and expand it

The linking succeeds when I add a full path (/path/to/libfoodir/libfoo.a) to the linker settings:

Targets > Build Settings (all) > Other linker flags

Answer 2

Under XCode 11.3.1, targeting MacOS

Tried to add absolute lib path to Other linker flags. But that doesn't work. So I copied required *.a files (ln -s may also work) to project dir and it worked like a charm.

Answer 3

Use the "-static" switch for linking: GCC link options

Answer 4

In reaction to your comment on Eduard Wirch' answer: you can also control static linking for this one library only, if you replace -lhdf5 by -l/full/path/to/libhdf5.a

Answer 5

Had this exact same problem and despite this being an old post, I thought I'd share what I had to do to make this work.

Usually you do just provide the switch '-static' to the linker however, with Xcode this causes all libs including the crt to be linked statically. I got the error:

can't locate file for: -lcrt0.o

When I tried this.

The thing which worked for me was to replace:

-lmylib

with

/path/to/libmylib.a

Note: the -l is dropped.