Linking a .lib file on Windows 7

Question

I have a C++ program test.cpp and I want to link two .lib files to it(fhlib.lib and gc_lib.lib).I have the .lib files in the same folder as my .cpp program. I'm on Windows 7.

What I have tried so far is the following:

g++ -o main main.cpp -L/Users\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\My Project -lfhlib

But I get an

No such file or directory error.

I'm sure the path is correct because I copied it from Properties->Location. But I had do delete the "C:\", because it was not compiling.

EDIT: I found this http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Specify_the_libraries_for_the_linker_to_use.

So I tried using

"-I" instead of "-l"

But still doesn't work.I get:

undefined reference to 'fh_set'...

Answer 1

If you're compiling with g++ on windows, I guess you're using MinGW: MinGW relies on .a libraries. When using the "-l" option, the compiler is looking for a library file with the extension .a.

Libraries in the format .lib are compiled with visual studio: you can't use it as this. Compile your libraries with MinGW if you have the sources or consider migrating your project to visual studio.