Win11 rusty build compiles hello_world sample but does not run as expected

[zeehans]

Not sure if this is indeed a bug or just something got mixed up with my setup:

I just pulled the latest master commit and rebuilt rusty on a Win11 machine. I build the hello_world example from the docs using

plc -c main.st -o main.exe --linker=clang

and it completes without an error. When I try to run it from powershell I get:

Program 'main.exe' failed to run: The specified executable is not a valid application for this OS platform.At line:1

I havent been using rusty in a while and used to use a build from an older master commit - probably almost two years old - and was able to compile and run far more complicated code.

Due to a Siemens AX trial installation I know that there was another clang toolchain installed on my system but that one is not on the path and pretty sure I am using the custom LLVM 14.0.6 toolchain.

Any ideas what could be causing this?

[ghaith]

Hello @zeehans

There are 2 things I notice:

• You use the -c flag but try to link the application, -c is compile only, which will skip linking. If you remove the flag you should not be compiling an executable for windows
• Second option that might be worth a try if removing the -c does not help is to divide the compile steps in 2, this is because sometimes clang can be configured to use the wrong linker to compile. I don't think it is happening in your case but it's worth a try:

plc -c main.st -o main.o
clang main.o -fuse-ld=lld-link -o main.exe

This will force clang to use the lld-link linker to link the executable.

[zeehans]

Right how silly of me re the -c flag. I just tried this without the -c flag

plc main.st main.exe --linker=clang

and get the error message:

clang: error: unable to execute command: program not executable
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)
An error occurred during linking: An error occured during linking.
Hint: You can use plc explain <ErrorCode> for more information

That is the same error message that I am receiving when building via plc config, eg

plc build config.json --linker=clang

Using your second suggestion,

plc -c main.st -o main.o
clang main.o -fuse-ld=lld-link -o main.exe

I get more useful error output suggesting the following libs need to be linked as well:

lld-link: error: could not open 'libcmt.lib': no such file or directory
lld-link: error: could not open 'oldnames.lib': no such file or directory
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

libcmt.lib is shipped together with the Win 10 SDK. Not sure where to find oldnames.lib.

[ghaith]

could it be that oldnames was removed for win11?
Let's try another approach, can you compile with
clang main.o -o main.exe skipping the lld-link part? this will link with the msvc linker (link.exe) let's see if it does a better job. You can also force it with -fuse-ld=link
I don't have a windows 11 machine at the moment but i'll try doing more tests later with that.

[zeehans]

@ghaith just tried your suggestions with -fuse-ld=link and without and in either case the error message is

clang: error: unable to execute command: program not executable
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)