What is a file with extension .a?

Question

I downloaded this: https://github.com/mongodb/mongo-c-driver

And now I\'m trying to use it inside my C program, but I don\'t know what to do with the generated .a fi

Answer 1

.a files are created with the ar utility, and they are libraries. To use it with gcc, collect all .a files in a lib/ folder and then link with -L lib/ and -l.

Collection of all .a files into lib/ is optional. Doing so makes for better looking directories with nice separation of code and libraries, IMHO.