How to open a .a file

Question

I've a little problem: I have to open a linker file that has .a extension. I use Dev-C++.

Answer 1

.a files are ar archives (something like zip archives) of object (.o) files. You can list files in .a file using ar program:

ar t file.a

And extract all files:

ar x file.a

Answer 2

Files with the .a extension are static libraries using Unix file naming conventions. They're not much more than an indexed collection of object code. You don't so much open them (unless you've got a tool like nm or gdb available, both of which can do sensible things with a library if not necessarily what you might want) as tell the linker to use them when linking. With most linkers, it's important to put all libraries (both static and dynamic/shared) after your main program code on the linker command line and the order of libraries matters too.