I'm tired of adding ten link libraries into my project, or requiring eight of them to use my own. I'd like to take existing libraries like libpng.a, libz.a, libjpeg.a, and combine them into one single .a library. Is that possible? How about combining .lib libraries?
On Unix like systems, the ld and ar utilities can do this. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar_(Unix) or lookup the man pages on any Linux box or through Google, e.g., 'Unix man ar'.
Please note that you might be better off linking to a shared (dynamic) library. This would add a dependency to your executable, but it will dramatically reduce its size, especially if you're writing a graphic application.