I would be really happy if instead of a dumb tool like ar -r libexample.a f.o g.o it was like creating shared libraries ld --static -o libexample.a f

I would be really happy if instead of a dumb tool like ar -r libexample.a f.o g.o it was like creating shared libraries ld --static -o libexample.a f.o g.o -L /somewhere/lib -ldep1 -ldep2 -rpath /somewhere/lib And that this would make the linker: 1. check whether all "undefined" symbols can be resolved in dependencies mentioned in `-l`, otherwise fail 2. store metadata of "used" libraries. So, it would create an archive `libexample.a` containing: f.o g.o METADATA where METADATA contains the search path `/somewhere/lib` and needed libraries `dep1` and `dep2`. So that ultimately when you compile and link `gcc foo.c -lexample`, the linker resolves the dependencies just like in shared linking.