Hi,

Compiling the following simple program (from fpc prog manual http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/prog/progsu46.html#x53-520001.2.46) yields a linking syntax error:

program Project1;
{$Linklib c}
Const P : PChar = 'This is fun !';
Function strlen (P: PChar): Longint; cdecl; external;
begin
   WriteLn ('Length of (',p,') : ',strlen(p))
end.

ppc386 program1.pp

Free Pascal Compiler version 3.1.1 [2015/06/06] for i386 Copyright (c) 1993-2015 by Florian Klaempfl and others Target OS: Linux for i386
Compiling program1.pp
Linking program1
/usr/bin/ld:link.res: file format not recognized; treating as linker script /usr/bin/ld:link.res:121: syntax error
program1.pp(8,1) Error: Error while linking
program1.pp(8,1) Fatal: There were 1 errors compiling module, stopping Fatal: Compilation aborted

Using 'ppc386 -s program1.pp' instead, line 121 of link.res is '-l c' in the section:
INPUT(
-l c
)

and the linker invocation line in ppas.sh is:
/usr/bin/ld -b elf32-i386 -m elf_i386
--dynamic-linker=/lib/ld-linux.so.2 -s -L. -o program1 link.res

Is this a bug?

Thanks,
Stephano

In our previous episode, patspiper said:

Not of a general kind, since it works on most Linux distros. E.g. it works fine on my debian jessie 64-bit.

So it must be something particular to your Linux installation or distribution. So best is to tell something about that installation.

Hello,

I had a similar discussion last April. See those two bug reports:

http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=27988
http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=27994

It might help you understand if the problem is the same or not.

Regards,

Ubuntu 11.04 32bit
fpc 3.0.1 and 3.1.1 (not sure which rev but max 2 weeks old) ld version: GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Ubuntu) 2.21.0.20110327

Stephano

Can you try with a different linker version? I've previously had problems with ld 2.21 on SPARC Solaris which apparently is acknowledged as a bad build, I was able to work round them to some extent by giving fpc an option like -k-T/some_path_here/ldscripts/elf32_sparc.x

I think that should be "-lc", not "-l c". I don't know where the extra space is coming from in your case.

Jonas

- I tried to link manually using the fpc produced link.res and got the same error.

- I removed the section INPUT(-l c) from link.res and linked manually (adding -lc as an option):
/usr/bin/ld -b elf32-i386 -m elf_i386
--dynamic-linker=/lib/ld-linux.so.2 -L. -lc -o program1 link.res Success!

I changed the following part in link.res:
INPUT(
-l c
)
to
INPUT(
-lc
)
and manual linking works!

So the issue is fpc producing link.res with a -l c instead of -lc. Which program specifically produces link.res?

Note: Newer ld built from source produces the same results.

Stephano

Exactly!

I have just posted a message with my findings. Which program produces link.res?

Stephano

patspiper wrote

So the issue is fpc producing link.res with a -l c instead of -lc. Which program specifically produces link.res?

It's the compiler. But this can't be a problem that always occurs, because otherwise "make all" would fail too as fpmake by default also links to libc.

Jonas

In our previous episode, patspiper said:

Maybe the problem is the $linklib line in your example? Some an extra (shift-?) space that isn't stripped but output to the linklib?

Exactly! I deleted the whole line, retyped it et voila!

It seems copying from LHelp carries some unwanted luggage (some odd invisible characters).

Thanks and sorry for the noise.

However I encountered this issue while trying to help Bo Berglund in his Lazarus mailing list thread. I will post a related specific question in a new fpc thread as not to mix things here.

Stephano