CMake: how create a single shared library from all static libraries of subprojects?

Question

I have the following layout:

top_project
    + subproject1
    + subproject2

Each of subproject1 and subproject2

Answer 1

My solution is simply to add /WHOLEARCHIVE, -all_load, or --whole-archive to the linker flags, so that when your main library is linked, all of the sub libraries are included, including all their symbols (the default behaviour is to only include symbols of the sub libraries that are used by the main library. For example:

Source Files

$ echo "void Func1() { }" > source1.cpp
$ echo "void Func2() { }" > source2.cpp
$ echo "void Func3() { }" > source3.cpp
$ echo "void Func4() { }" > source4.cpp

Naive CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.7)

# The 'sub' libraries, e.g. from an `add_subdirectory()` call.
add_library(sublib_a STATIC source1.cpp source2.cpp)
add_library(sublib_b STATIC source3.cpp source4.cpp)

# The main library that contains all of the sub libraries.
add_library(mainlib SHARED)

target_link_libraries(mainlib sublib_a sublib_b)

Running it (on OSX):

$ make VERBOSE=1
...
[100%] Linking CXX shared library libmainlib.dylib
/usr/local/Cellar/cmake/3.7.1/bin/cmake -E cmake_link_script CMakeFiles/mainlib.dir/link.txt --verbose=1
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/c++   -dynamiclib -Wl,-headerpad_max_install_names  -o libmainlib.dylib -install_name @rpath/libmainlib.dylib  libsublib_a.a libsublib_b.a 
[100%] Built target mainlib

$ nm libmainlib.dylib | grep Func
$

Correct CMakeLists.txt

Append this:

# By default, symbols provided by the sublibs that are not used by mainlib (which is all of them in this case)
# are not used. This changes that.
if (WIN32)
    set_target_properties(mainlib PROPERTIES
        LINK_FLAGS "/WHOLEARCHIVE"
    )
elseif (APPLE)
    set_target_properties(mainlib PROPERTIES
        LINK_FLAGS "-Wl,-all_load"
    )
else ()
    set_target_properties(mainlib PROPERTIES
        LINK_FLAGS "-Wl,--whole-archive"
    )
endif ()

Running it (note the extra -all_load):

$ make VERBOSE=1
[100%] Linking CXX shared library libmainlib.dylib
/usr/local/Cellar/cmake/3.7.1/bin/cmake -E cmake_link_script CMakeFiles/mainlib.dir/link.txt --verbose=1
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/c++   -dynamiclib -Wl,-headerpad_max_install_names -Wl,-all_load -o libmainlib.dylib -install_name @rpath/libmainlib.dylib  libsublib_a.a libsublib_b.a 
[100%] Built target mainlib

$ nm libmainlib.dylib | grep Func
0000000000001da0 T __Z5Func1v
0000000000001db0 T __Z5Func2v
0000000000001dc0 T __Z5Func3v
0000000000001dd0 T __Z5Func4v

Note that I've only actually tested -all_load so far, and /WHOLEARCHIVE is an MSVC 2015 option.