how to do static linking of libwinpthread-1.dll in

Question

I use mingw from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/files/host-windows/releases/4.7.2/32-bit/threads-posix/sjlj/x32-4.7.2-release-posix-sjlj-rev2.7z/download

And I've sucessfully managed to link statically libstdc++-6.dll and libgcc_s_sjlj-1.dll by using -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++ parameters, but I cannot find a command for doing the same with libwinpthread-1.dll.

Answer 1

Apparently, CMake does some weird stuff with how the -Wl compiler flags are handled, making the -Wl,-Bstatic -lstdc++ -lwinpthread -Wl,-Bdynamic solution not work, with only two other options seemingly left: the bad compiler flag -static and the ugly compiler flag -Wl,--whole-archive.

Meanwhile, the good option that actually works in CMake, yet seems rather undocumented, is to directly use the linker flags. Hence, in CMake, this seems to be the best way to statically link to all the mingw-w64 C++ dependencies:

target_link_libraries (MyVeryAwesomeApp -static gcc stdc++ winpthread -dynamic)

It should be noted that even if there isn't a library explicitly following -dynamic, it should still be applied in order to ensure that the standard, implicitly linked libraries get linked correctly.

Answer 2

You should probably check command line options documentation for GCC.

These's no '-static-something' command, only standard libraries (libgcc and libstdc++) can be set to static linking with one command. For other libraries, you first switch to static linking with "-static" and then list the libraries to include with separate commands, ie "-lpthread".

Answer 3

For anyone working in CMake, this solution is readily implemented in your CMakeLists.txt file as follows...

set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -static")

Answer 4

To statically link winpthread even if threading isn't used in the program, pass the -Bstatic and --whole-archive parameters to the linker:

g++ -o hello.exe hello.cpp -Wl,-Bstatic,--whole-archive -lwinpthread -Wl,--no-whole-archive

Note the following:

• The "whole archive" option should be disabled immediately afterwards.
• You don't need to do this hack if your program actually uses symbols from the library (i.e. you use <thread> from C++11), in which case the library won't get dropped when you statically link it.
• This hack is intended for MinGW-w64, to fix the libwinpthread-1.dll dependencies.

Answer 5

I had the same problem. I am using Code::Blocks, and I had success by adding an additional line in linker commmands:

-lpthread -L libwinpthread-1.dll

This command should be added wherever you implement other linker commands such as:

-static-libgcc
-static-libstdc++

I receive no compile errors or warnings when implementing this command. The first directive, -lpthread, specifies the header file, and trailing directive, -L, is used to link a specific file.

I am using gcc version 4.8.1. This later version contains bug fixes for *to_string*, for instance which I needed.

Answer 6

If your toolchain includes the static winpthreads, adding the option

-static

Will pull in static versions of all libraries it can.

Alternatively, you can remove libwinpthread.dll.a and the DLL itself from the toolchain directories. This might mess up programs linking with libstdc++ and libgcc DLLs though, so be careful.

A third option is to use -Wl,-Bdynamic and -Wl,-Bstatic to select which version you want linked in (which is what -static internally does when ld is called). An example:

gcc -o someexec someobject.o -Wl,-Bdynamic -lsomelibIwantshared -Wl,-Bstatic -lsomelibIwantstatic

If you run your link command with -v added, you should see these options appearing in the ld/collect2 invocation when you use -static-libgcc and -static-libstdc++.