[Mono-list] interacting with external libraries

[Svetoslav Marinov]

Dear all,

First apologies if my question seems ridiculous or naive. I am not a  
very experienced programmer .

I have a C++ library which I would like to use in my C# programs. The  
library has the extension ".a", i.e. libTimbl.a.  Now the  
"Monkeyguide" has some reference to "Interop with Native libraries".  
However it refers to libraries with extension ".so".

Now the question is - Is there a way to use the ".a" library directly  
in my C# programs? Can once give me a short example of how to achieve  
this. The library has 2 functions which I want to use: Train(file)  
and Classify(example).

Is there a way to convert an ".a" library into ".so" one? In case I  
cannot use the libTimbl.a directly.

Thank you very much in advance!

Svetoslav