Why might you want a static library instead of a dynamic one? Theoretically, dynamically linking is preferred over static linking because if you can maintain forward compatibility you can save some space by reusing and sharing binaries across multiple consumers of those binaries. In practice, I’ve found this to rarely work well, and run headlong into DLL Hell more often than I haven’t. To combat this, you typically include all the .dlls your application requires beside the main binary, which is basically statically linking but more fragile, and way more annoying—you’ll always be lugging around several .dlls beside your final binary and you’ll have to start bundling your application into an archive just to deliver it to consumers when you could just send them a single executable. As for the extra space, my hundreds-of-gigabytes SSD simply doesn’t care if my application weighs a couple extra MB. If that is something you do care about, then static linking probably isn’t for you. If the thought of adding a couple of MB to your executable size doesn’t send you running for the hills, read on.

SQLCipher is a handy “extension” to SQLite3 which provides encryption to SQLite3 databases. It is readily accessible as a static library on Linux, but the community edition doesn’t provide support for building a static library on Windows. Fortunately, obtaining a static sqlcipher.lib library is fairly straightforward—it more or less requires only 3 steps:

1. Obtain a static version of the OpenSSL libraries
2. Edit the supplied Makefile.msc to link to static OpenSSL
3. Compile!

Obtaining Statically-Included OpenSSL Libraries

By default, OpenSSL comes compiled as a dynamic library, but we want a static one! Fortunately, vcpkg makes it easy to obtain static builds of the OpenSSL libraries. Head on over to https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg and follow the instructions to be able to run vcpkg:

> cd ~/Downloads
> git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
> cd vcpkg

PS> .\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
PS> .\vcpkg integrate install

Now you can install the static OpenSSL libraries. For x64:

PS> .\vcpkg install openssl:x64-windows-static

For x86:

PS> .\vcpkg install openssl:x86-windows-static

This will take a bit of time, but once done, you can find the resulting include and lib files at Downloads\vcpkg\packages\openssl-windows_x64-windows-static (for x64, Downloads\vcpkg\packages\openssl-windows_x86-windows-static for 32-bit).

Edit SQLCipher‘s Makefile

Start by cloning SQLCipher somewhere:

> git clone https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher.git
> cd sqlcipher

Make your life a little easier by copying the openssl-windows_x64-windows-static and openssl-windows_x86-windows-static folders into the SQLCipher folder, or change the paths in the variables below to point to the right location.

Now open Makefile.msc in a text editor and replace the lines:

# Flags controlling use of the in memory btree implementation
#
# SQLITE_TEMP_STORE is 0 to force temporary tables to be in a file, 1 to
# default to file, 2 to default to memory, and 3 to force temporary
# tables to always be in memory.
#
TCC = $(TCC) -DSQLITE_TEMP_STORE=1
RCC = $(RCC) -DSQLITE_TEMP_STORE=1

by the following:

# Flags controlling use of the in memory btree implementation
#
# SQLITE_TEMP_STORE is 0 to force temporary tables to be in a file, 1 to
# default to file, 2 to default to memory, and 3 to force temporary
# tables to always be in memory.
#
TCC = $(TCC) -DSQLITE_TEMP_STORE=2
RCC = $(RCC) -DSQLITE_TEMP_STORE=2

TCC = $(TCC) -DSQLITE_HAS_CODEC
RCC = $(RCC) -DSQLITE_HAS_CODEC

!IF "$(PLATFORM)"=="x64"
TCC = $(TCC) -I"openssl-windows_x64-windows-static\include"
RCC = $(RCC) -I"openssl-windows_x64-windows-static\include"
!ELSEIF "$(PLATFORM)"=="x86"
TCC = $(TCC) -I"openssl-windows_x86-windows-static\include"
RCC = $(RCC) -I"openssl-windows_x86-windows-static\include"
!ENDIF

!IF "$(PLATFORM)"=="x64"
LTLIBPATHS = $(LTLIBPATHS) /LIBPATH:"openssl-windows_x64-windows-static\lib"
LTLIBS = $(LTLIBS) libcrypto.lib libssl.lib
!ELSEIF "$(PLATFORM)"=="x86"
LTLIBPATHS = $(LTLIBPATHS) /LIBPATH:"openssl-windows_x86-windows-static\lib"
LTLIBS = $(LTLIBS) libcrypto32.lib libssl32.lib
!ENDIF

# for OpenSSL: https://github.com/openssl/openssl/blob/3d362f190306b62a17aa2fd475b2bc8b3faa8142/NOTES.WIN#L112
LTLIBS = $(LTLIBS) WS2_32.Lib Gdi32.Lib AdvAPI32.Lib Crypt32.Lib User32.Lib

Basically, what this replacement does is: it changes SQLITE_TEMP_STORE to default to store temporary files in memory rather than files (a requirement for SQLCipher); it tells SQLite that there is a codec (again, a requirement for SQLCipher); and then includes the OpenSSL static libraries we obtained earlier. The additional librares (WS2_32.Lib, etc) are included because OpenSSL requires them, see OpenSSL / Linking your application for more details.

Compile SQLCipher

With our additions to the makefile we can now compile SQLCipher. To do so, launch the Visual Studio Native Tools command prompt from your start menu: either VS2019 x64 Native Tools Command Prompt (for 64-bit) or VS2019 x86 Native Tools Command Prompt (for 32-bit), then navigate to the SQLCipher folder. Finally, make it:

> nmake /f Makefile.msc

This will take a bit, but at the end it should spit out all the binaries you need: libsqlite3.lib, sqlite3.dll, sqlite3.exe, etc. Note that most tools expect SQLCipher binaries to replace “sqlite3” by “sqlcipher”, so you may want to rename the files.

Compile Your Code Using Static SQLCipher

Note that libsqlite3.lib requires a few definitions which are found in the libcrypto.lib and libssl.lib libraries, so in order to link libsqlite3.lib, you’ll also have to link libcrypto.lib and libssl.lib. How you do this depends on your language, but for Rust, it’s as easy as adding the following build.rs script beside your package manifest:

#[cfg(windows)]
fn main() {
    // include libcrypto and libssl for static sqlcipher to work
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-lib=libcrypto");
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-lib=libssl");
}

#[cfg(unix)]
fn main() {}

There is probably a way to include just the symbols that SQLCipher needs in sqlcipher.lib and not rely on libcrypto.lib and libssl.lib after compiling libsqlite3.lib, but I don’t know enough Windows makefile voodoo to make that happen—if you do, please let me know!