2010/7/30 David Aldrich <David.Aldrich@eu.nec.com>

Please can anyone explain why the static libraries are at least 25x larger than the shared libraries?

Is there a way to reduce the size of the static libraries?

this is beacause :
- function name mangling are not stripped away in static libs
- duplicate template instantiation are not stripped away in static libs

This is the job of the linker. when finally linking, name mangling and duplicates are removed. this explains why dll are smaller than static libs. There is no whay to reduce the size of your static libs. This is compiler (or linker / template implementation / name mangling / whatever ) dependant...