CMake - Link against exe on Windows - c++

Question

I'm trying to make a plugin system for my application, and thus each plugin will need to link with my main application. This is fine on Linux and macOS, as I can just set the ENABLE_EXPORTS property of my executable target (set_target_properties(${PROJECT_NAME} PROPERTIES ENABLE_EXPORTS 1), and plugins will link just fine. On Windows however, clang++ yells at me that it can't find libws2editor.dll.a.
clang++.exe: error: no such file or directory: 'ws2editor/libws2editor.dll.a'
Upon looking over the CMake docs, it says "For DLL platforms an import library will be created for the exported symbols and then used for linking." - This import library file (presumably the .dll.a) never seems to be created though.
So how can I get the CMake build on Windows to create this file, or otherwise link with an executable?

Answer 1

Looks like I can use ar to generate the .a file for me, regardless of generator - plugins seem to link and load just fine when doing this. Awesome! :)
if(WIN32)
#Invoke ar to generate a .dll.a from the .obj files, required to link plugins
add_custom_command(TARGET ${PROJECT_NAME} PRE_LINK
COMMAND sh -c "${CMAKE_AR} cr lib${PROJECT_NAME}.dll.a $$(find . -name '*.obj' -printf '%p ')"
COMMENT "Generating lib${PROJECT_NAME}.dll.a for external linking"
)
#Also add the install command for libws2editor.dll.a
install(FILES ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/lib${PROJECT_NAME}.dll.a DESTINATION bin)
endif(WIN32)