What makes a convenience library (use --whole-archive)?

[Michael Poole]

Some of the files in my convenience libraries have static
initializers.  By default, the linker discards these symbols because
they are not referenced.  I am trying to figure out how to keep them
in an automake-driven build.

Mailing list threads I have seen on the Internet, plus the "libtool"
script code (as of version 2.2.6b), indicate that convenience
libraries should be linked with -Wl,--whole-archive (or the
equivalent).  I do not see that here.

In a reduced test case, my Makefile.am looks like this:

ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4
AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = foreign
noinst_LTLIBRARIES = libsubdir.la
libsubdir_la_LDFLAGS = -static
libsubdir_la_SOURCES = subdir/item.cpp
noinst_PROGRAMS = test
test_SOURCES = test.cpp
test_LDADD = libsubdir.la

And the final link stage looks like this:

/bin/sh ./libtool  --tag=CXX   --mode=link g++  -g -O2   -o test
test.o libsubdir.la
libtool: link: g++ -g -O2 -o test test.o  ./.libs/libsubdir.a

.. and the static initialization code in subdir/item.cpp is not called.

What am I overlooking (or doing wrong)?

(For completeness, the reduced configure.ac looks like this:

AC_INIT([lttest], [1.0])
AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])
AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([test.cpp])
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([-Wall -Werror])
LT_INIT([static disable-shared])
AC_PROG_CXX
AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile])
AC_OUTPUT

test.cpp has an empty main() and subdir/item.cpp contains a static
instance of a class that prints "Hello world" in its constructor.)

Michael Poole