Linking libraries with gcc: order of arguments

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With gcc but also other compilers (e.g. clang), the order of linker command arguments does matter.
As a rule of thumb, I would use the following order when composing the linker command:

  1. Object files (*.o)
  2. Static libraries (*.a)
  3. Shared libraries (*.so)

The order of shared libraries does matter as well. If libfoo.so depends on libbar.so, you should list -lfoo before -lbar.

This can get quite complex if you don’t know the exact dependencies. The following command on linux could help:

ldd /path/to/libfoo.so

This lists all shared libs on which libfoo.so depends.

As to your question why this problem popped up with your particular gcc version, it’s hard to tell without knowing which libs your application requires. But if you apply the order like I described above, it should work for both older and newer gcc versions.

Hint: CMake, if used correctly, can handle all that dependency stuff for you…

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