9.2 Building a library

Building a library is much like building a program. In this case, the name of the primary is `LIBRARIES'. Libraries can be installed in libdir or pkglibdir.

See section 9.3 Building a Shared Library, for information on how to build shared libraries using Libtool and the `LTLIBRARIES' primary.

Each `_LIBRARIES' variable is a list of the libraries to be built. For instance to create a library named `libcpio.a', but not install it, you would write:

noinst_LIBRARIES = libcpio.a

The sources that go into a library are determined exactly as they are for programs, via the `_SOURCES' variables. Note that the library name is canonicalized (see section 2.4 How derived variables are named), so the `_SOURCES' variable corresponding to `liblob.a' is `liblob_a_SOURCES', not `liblob.a_SOURCES'.

Extra objects can be added to a library using the `library_LIBADD' variable. This should be used for objects determined by configure. Again from cpio:

libcpio_a_LIBADD = @LIBOBJS@ @ALLOCA@

In addition, sources for extra objects that will not exist until configure-time must be added to the BUILT_SOURCES variable (see section 10.4 Built sources).