[Mingw-users] Make/Link problems

[Scott A. S. <ss...@ma...>]

Greetings,

I just installed MinGW 2.0.0 and MSYS 1.0.7-2 and began trying it by
building a static library using make from the rxvt shell from MSYS. This
same build works fine on Linux and with Cygwin running gcc 2.95.x and the
code compiles clean on MSVC++ V6 too. I have encountered two different
problems with MinGW & MSYS.

Problem 1:
I use a recursive makefile that loops through various sub-directories and
includes other makefiles. After some time of running smoothly the make
program crashes, here is a typical error:

0 [main] make 1212 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to
make.exe.stackdump
make[2]: *** [buildmods] Error 1
make[1]: *** [buildall] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2

If I restart make it continues on to some other point, then does the same
thing. Each successive restart may pick up where it left off then crash or
may die while checking whether it needs to build earlier parts. Where it
decides to stop seems random. I noticed a similar problem just after I did
the MinGW/MSYS install and thought maybe I needed to reboot or log out/log
in. I can also try to make targets that build individual parts of my
package. These also cause make to crash intermittently, but with multipe
restarts I can get all of my code to compile. Anyone see such problems with
make from MSYS/MinGW?

Problem 2:

A different, less complex, makefile will build my static library just fine.
Again this is done in rxvt with a make command. I know I am using the proper
make program:

$ make -v
GNU Make version 3.79.1, by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath.
Built for i686-pc-msys
...

I know I am using the proper gcc, here is what it sez:

$ gcc -v
Reading specs from c:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc-lib/mingw32/3.2/specs
Configured with:
../gcc/configure --with-gcc --with-gnu-ld --with-gnu-as --host=mingw32 --tar
get=mingw32 --prefix=/mingw --enable-threads --disable-nls --enable-language
s=f77,c++,objc,ada --disable-win32-registry --disable-shared
Thread model: win32
gcc version 3.2 (mingw special 20020817-1)

And there is not a single complaint during the build.  But then, when I
build a program linking to my library I get several undefined reference
errors, such as

undefined reference to `_GLOBAL......

These are NOT due to a lack of including any library or headers. 99.9% of
the library functions produce no complaints. There are member functions,
global functions, and static variables scattered throughout my code files
that compile splendidly and apparently link without problems. In fact, they
work fine too, because I can cut back to the first parts of my code before
any of the above errors are produced and see that everything is fine. AFAIK
the undefined reference problems are not due to any problems with my code,
again it works fine on other C++ compilers.

Here is the odd part: It is ALWAYS the first (non-member) function or static
variable declared in a particular file which produces the error. Not all of
my code files produce the of error even though they have similar functions
and static variables too. So, I am mystified. I don't know if this is this a
GCC 3.x related problem or a MinGW one. Maybe I need some new compiler/link
flags?  The pragma inteface/implementation stuff is still
supported?

If anyone has any clues, I'd appreciate the help.

Scott