title: Convert .a file to .dll
body: <p>This question is surely answered here somewhere, but I couldn't find it. I've been writing Java for over a decade now and my C experience was on Unix, so I'm kinda at square one here. In my Unix experience, someone else wrote the makefile and it just worked.</p>
  
  <p>I have downloaded the C source code for libtar-1.2.11 from feep and ran <code>make</code> on it from inside of cygwin. This created a <code>.a</code> file and a <code>.exe</code> file. The EXE file appears to essentially be tar to run on Windows, but what I wanted was for the libraries to read and process the file in my own code.</p>
  
  <p>If I remember correctly, those should be in the <code>.a</code> file (archive??) and this needs to be linked into a library that I can use from my C++ program. So I'm looking for a way to do that.</p>
  
  <p>I am writing a library that will use a <code>.tgz</code> file and so I want to use this library. I think I'd like to turn libtar into a DLL as well as create a DLL myself for use in other languages.</p>
  
  <p>So, how do I turn my <code>.a</code> file into something usable by other apps, and how do I access it from inside my code?</p>