Portable and convenient way to make a library (.a/.lib) file included in the executable.

[F-Loyer]

When compiling an executable with a library (.a file), its content is not included if not statically linked. And Ctypes-foreign use dynamic linking.

Then following tiny example fails: https://gitlab.com/frederic.loyer/ctype_error

One way to avoid this problem would be to pin a foreign_library as completly included.

With a gcc toolchain: the main program has to be compiled with -cclib -Wl,--whole-archive -cclib lib_yourlib_.a -cclib -Wl,--no-whole-archive. On MSVC with -cclib /WHOLEARCHIVE:_yourlib_.lib.

I don't know if an handy way to make a library included in the executable could be implemented. One tricky point is that a package can provide a library and it is the main program which must use the whole archive flags.

There is a hack: using a static link with a dummy statical external declaration (see the constfun answer yallop/ocaml-ctypes#541)