ive built a load of .o files into a .a file with:

ar rcs my_library.a file1.o file2.o etc...

then, i compilied by actual app with:

g++ -c main.cpp
g++ -c Application.cpp

i look in my directory and i can see:

Application.o main.o my_library.a

all i want to do is link main.o and Application.o with my_library.a. so i type:

g++ -o TheEXE main.o Application.o -l my_library.a

but the compiler says:

/usr/bin/ld: cannot open -lmy_library.a: no such file or directory.

how can i instruct it to look in the current directory? or is another problem? i have tried the -L switch, like this:

g++ -o TheEXE main.o Application.o -L ./ -l my_library.a

and even hard coded the full path, like this:

g++ -o TheEXE main.o Application.o -L /home/myapp/ -l my_library.a

but i get the same error