under latest MinGW, cannot link with C code using stdout

[tspiteri]

I'm having an issue under MinGW and I'm not sure if it's a MinGW issue or a rustc issue. On the one hand the bug crops up after an update to two MinGW packages, but on the other hand I cannot reproduce with only C, and I don't know if rustc is using MinGW in some undocumented unsupported way.

say_hi.c:

#include <stdio.h>
void say_hi(void) {
    fprintf(stdout, "hi!\n");
}

c_main.c

void say_hi(void);
int main(void) {
    say_hi();
    return 0;
}

r_main.rs:

extern "C" {
    fn say_hi();
}
fn main() {
    unsafe {
        say_hi();
    }
}

Under the latest MinGW, specifically with packages

• mingw-w64-x86_64-crt-git-6.0.0.5066.61efe559-1 and
• mingw-w64-x86_64-headers-git-6.0.0.5066.61efe559-1,

using only gcc like this works:

$ gcc -c say_hi.c
$ ar cr libsay_hi.a say_hi.o
$ gcc c_main.c -L. -lsay_hi -o c_main.exe && ./c_main.exe
hi!

But it doesn't work with rustc:

$ gcc -c say_hi.c
$ ar cr libsay_hi.a say_hi.o
$ rustc r_main.rs -L. -lsay_hi -o r_main.exe && ./r_main.exe
error: linking with `gcc` failed: exit code: 1
  |
  = note: "gcc" "-Wl,--enable-long-section-names" "-fno-use-linker-plugin" "-Wl,--nxcompat" "-nostdlib" "-m64" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\crt2.o" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rsbegin.o" "-L" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib" "r_main.r_main0.rust-cgu.o" "-o" "r_main.exe" "r_main.crate.allocator.rust-cgu.o" "-Wl,--gc-sections" "-nodefaultlibs" "-L" "." "-L" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib" "-l" "say_hi" "-Wl,-Bstatic" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\libstd-60d4a252bdda9250.rlib" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\liballoc_system-a05404e5e059417a.rlib" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\librand-81cbf6f1d5a19206.rlib" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\libpanic_unwind-0b63e20460046692.rlib" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\liballoc-f824a78e715239af.rlib" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\libstd_unicode-2abaea46f194a6e1.rlib" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\libunwind-7daa32005d584d8a.rlib" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\liblibc-49ff25caaa6e945f.rlib" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\libcore-f2bd2d524c6ace24.rlib" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\libcompiler_builtins-c6139fac5e899293.rlib" "-Wl,-Bdynamic" "-l" "advapi32" "-l" "ws2_32" "-l" "userenv" "-l" "shell32" "-Wl,-Bstatic" "-l" "gcc_eh" "-l" "pthread" "-Wl,-Bdynamic" "-lmingwex" "-lmingw32" "-lgcc" "-lmsvcrt" "-luser32" "-lkernel32" "C:\\Users\\Trevor\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rustlib\\x86_64-pc-windows-gnu\\lib\\rsend.o"
  = note: ./libsay_hi.a(say_hi.o):say_hi.c:(.text+0x10): undefined reference to `__imp___acrt_iob_func'
          

error: aborting due to previous error

If I downgrade those two packages to

• mingw-w64-x86_64-crt-git-5.0.0.5002.34a7c1c0-1 and
• mingw-w64-x86_64-headers-git-5.0.0.5002.34a7c1c0-1,

it works with rustc too:

$ gcc -c say_hi.c
$ ar cr libsay_hi.a say_hi.o
$ rustc r_main.rs -L. -lsay_hi -o r_main.exe && ./r_main.exe
hi!

One last thing, if I compile the library using the old packages, and then upgrade the packages, both gcc c_main.c ... and rustc r_main.rs ... work. If I compile the library using the new packages, and then downgrade the packages, both gcc c_main.c ... and rustc r_main.rs ... fail.

[mati865]

Mingw-w64 seen some huge changes lately, if recompiling Rust with latest mingw-w64 doesn't work or still gives errors like that then it's probably a regression they introduced.

[cretz]

Got anyone else arriving here across the web w/ new MinGW breaks, in addition to:

pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/mingw-w64-x86_64-crt-git-5.0.0.4745.d2384c2-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/mingw-w64-x86_64-headers-git-5.0.0.4747.0f8f626-1-any.pkg.tar.xz

You might also need to downgrade winpthreads (granted your version numbers may be different):

pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/mingw-w64-x86_64-winpthreads-git-5.0.0.4741.2c8939a-1-any.pkg.tar.xz /var/cache/pacman/pkg/mingw-w64-x86_64-libwinpthread-git-5.0.0.4741.2c8939a-1-any.pkg.tar.xz

Had to do both at once due to codeps. I ran into this Rust+MinGW issue when statically building latest Tor and deps w/ latest MinGW.

[tspiteri]

The old packages are also available at http://repo.msys2.org/mingw/x86_64/, where you can download the latest versions of the packages in question that include git-5.0.0 in their version rather than the new incompatible git-6.0.0. This could be required for example on a new MinGW installation where there are no git-5.0.0 packages in /var/cache/pacman/pkg.

[lins05]

Reached here by googling.

@cretz thanks for the tip, it works

[mati865]

Should be fixed with crt/headers packages in version 6.0.0.5114.b9400293. They are already available in the repository.

[tspiteri]

I upgraded to version 6.0.0.5114 and reproduced the issue. Downgrading to 5.0.0.5002 still works.

(Keep in mind that if the library is built using 5.0.0.5002, linking will work using 6.0.0.*.)

[mati865]

Similar issue was fixed recently https://github.com/Alexpux/MINGW-packages/issues/3469.

Maybe rust internals have to be recompiled.

[NovemberZulu]

Still happens for with rustc 1.25.0 (package in question is cargo-update). May be Rust build machine has older MinGW?

[mati865]

Yeah, I just forgot that Rust is using mingw-w64-builds toolchain which is still based on 5.x mingw-w64 releases.
That basically makes official Rust unusable within MSYS2.