MinGW + Boost: undefined link to `WSAStartup @ 8 '

Question

below is what I'm doing

D:\Just4Fun\software\>make -f Makefile.hands stest
g++.exe -g -D_WIN32_WINNT=0x0601 -ID:\Boost\boost_1_51_0 -LD:\Boost\boost_1_51_0\stage\lib -LD:\MinGW\lib -lboost_system-mgw46-d-1_51 -lboost_filesystem-mgw46-d-1_51 -lboost_iostreams-mgw46-d-1_51 -lws2_32 -lwsock32 -o TestSerial.exe TestSerial.cpp

below is the result of this

C:\Users\oleg\AppData\Local\Temp\ccXpC7RG.o: In function 'ZN5boost4asio6detail17winsock_init_base7startupERNS2_4dataEhh': D:/Boost/boost_1_51_0/boost/asio/detail/impl/winsock_init.ipp:39: undefined reference to 'WSAStartup@8'C:\Users\oleg\AppData\Local\Temp\ccXpC7RG.o: In function 'ZN5boost4asio6detail17winsock_init_base7cleanupERNS2_4dataE': D:/Boost/boost_1_51_0/boost/asio/detail/impl/winsock_init.ipp:48: undefined reference to 'WSACleanup@0' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make: *** [stest] Error 1

Below is the result of checking the libraries against the mentioned symobls (I could not format it accordingly)

`d: \ MinGW \ lib> nm -C libws2_32.a | grep WSAStartup
00000000 T WSAStartup @ 8
00000000 i imp_WSAStartup @ 8

d: \ MinGW \ lib> nm -C libws2_32.a | grep WSACleanup
00000000 T WSACleanup @ 0
00000000 i imp_WSACleanup @ 0

d: \ MinGW \ lib> nm -C libwsock32.a | grep WSACleanup
00000000 T WSACleanup @ 0
00000000 i imp_WSACleanup @ 0

d: \ MinGW \ lib> nm -C libwsock32.a | grep WSAStartup
00000000 T WSAStartup @ 8
00000000 i imp_WSAStartup @ 8`

As you can see, the symbols exist in the libraries, and the libraries are located at the place indicated by the corresponding -L command line parameters.
So why is "undefined refernce" ????

Answer 1

This is a very common mistake with a very simple solution: put the libraries you are linking to after the source and object files.