GCC -rdynamic not working with static libraries

Question

Why is -rdynamic not exporting the symbols in .a files but is exporting the symbols in .o files ?

I have an app and a plug-in in a .so file. The main app is linked u

Answer 1

A .o file is ELF relocatable, and, a .so file is ELF shared object. Whereas a .a file is current archive. When the linker is passed the --export-dynamic flag through the -rdynamic from gcc, it is looking for a dynamic object file.

I think the linker does not care to look into the archive and extract the symbols.