This simple wrong D2 program generates expected linker errors and then an unexpected crash on Windows: void main();
(In reply to comment #0) > This simple wrong D2 program generates expected linker errors and then an > unexpected crash on Windows: > void main(); What do you mean, 'unexpected'? It complains that there's no main(). Passing an empty file does exactly the same thing. (The annoying thing is that it makes an exe anyway, even though the exe is corrupt).
(In reply to comment #1) > What do you mean, 'unexpected'? It complains that there's no main(). Passing an > empty file does exactly the same thing. > (The annoying thing is that it makes an exe anyway, even though the exe is > corrupt). You are right, sorry. The crash is not caused by the compiler/linker, but by the corrupt exe.
The linker is supposed to create an exe file, even if there are errors. This is handy for some special purposes.
What circumstances? I don't have a lot of experience with windows, but binutils ld doesn't leave broken turds when linking fails like that. I can see having a linker option to force it to leave the output alone on error, but not having that as the default behavior. Would you treat dmd leaving a .obj file around if there are syntax errors in the .d being built?
Optlink has a /DELEXECUTABLE flag for deleting the exe if there are linker errors, but it doesn't work (I assume because optlink creates warnings instead of errors for OPs code). Additionally optlink creates executables even if you don't pass anything to it, e.g.: $ link.exe creates .exe The linker gives you warnings and creates a `.exe` file. Pretty stupid behavior if you ask me. Every modern console app would display a list of arguments you can pass to it, or a sane warning instead of "OPTLINK : Warning 134: No Start Address" when you didn't pass a single file to it.
The special purposes are when parts of your program are missing, but you want to link and run the rest of it. I'm not sure why /delexecutable is not working, though.
Transferred the issue to OPTLINK Github repository: https://github.com/DigitalMars/optlink/issues/24
*** Issue 12340 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***