Just now I found that static libraries in *nix systems, in other words *.a libraries are nothing but archives of relocatables(*.o files) in ar fromat.

  1. What about static libraries(*.lib files) in windows? Which format are they in?

  2. I found an article (archived copy 1, archived copy 2) which explains *.lib file structure. But Where can I find "Official" specifications of *.lib file structure/format?

  3. Other than ar.exe of mingw is there any tool from Microsoft which extracts relocatable objects of *.lib & *.a files?

EDIT:

I wonder why I'm unable to get to this question. If there are no official specifications. Then how does the compiler ('linker' to be more correct) writers work with *.LIB files?

visual-studio gcc mingw static-libraries
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