Compile a 64 bits library

That tips is aimed at solving the following error message, usually appearing when compiling some large piece of software on a 64 bits system:

$afile: relocation R_X86_64_32 against $afile can not be used when making
  a shared object; recompile with -fPIC

where $afile is the path to some .a library file. The solution to this to recompile the library containing $afile as a pure shared 64 bits library. I will assume the library is using the GNU autotools (i.e the configure script, Make etc...) as its build system

To recompile, cd into the library's build directory and run something like:

$ make distclean
$ CFLAGS='-m64 -fPIC' CC='gcc -m64 -fPIC' ./configure --enable-shared

You can of course add other options to ./configure as you see fit.