CMake: Is it possible to build an executable from only static libraries and no source?

Question

I would like to build an executable from static libraries (i. e. .a-files) only. This is possible, because the main() function is contained in one of these libr

Answer 1

There is no way to do it without a hack. You need at least one *.c or *.cpp file.

What I do is make a dummy null.cpp file (zero bytes) and use that. You can also use /dev/null but that only works on Linux.

file(WRITE null.cpp "")

add_executable(tester
    null.cpp
)

target_link_libraries(tester
    -Wl,--whole-archive
    libtest1
    libtest2
    libtest3
    libtest4
    -Wl,--no-whole-archive
    gtest_main
)