Ld: warning: cannot find entry symbol _start; defaulting to 0000000000401020

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1

I had a problem compiling cross compiling a program for an other OS and wanted to test:

ld -lc

So I wrote:

[paul@localhost x86_64]$ cat main.c
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
  printf ("hello world");
  return 0;
}

then:

gcc -o main.c

and then:

[paul@localhost x86_64]$ LANG=C ld -lc main.o
ld: warning: cannot find entry symbol _start; defaulting to 0000000000401020
[paul@localhost x86_64]$

and the resulting a.out does not execute (even if I chmod +x it)

but if I just gcc main.c … it give a fine executable a.out without warning.

Why?

2

Please use the provided formatting tools to make your posts easier to read, and easier to copy/paste. I’ve done that for you now. More on this and using the forum better in the #start-here category.

3

@FranciscoD Yeah… you say this in many many posts… but I am not able to find something interesting from your link. Surely not tips on how to format my message. Have you try your #start-here link yourself recently? It make you go on a page in many languages, where not much useful is accessible.

4

Really? I see this link there in the first section of https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/welcome-to-ask-fedora-please-read-me-first/69479

https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-new-user-guide/96331#heading--reply

Did you read it?

The post is present in different languages because we have users that read different languages. Are you not able to find English there?

5

About your question, when you use gcc, it does all the 4 steps that are needed to generate an executable:

$ gcc  -v test.c
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=/usr/bin/gcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/lto-wrapper
OFFLOAD_TARGET_NAMES=nvptx-none
OFFLOAD_TARGET_DEFAULT=1
Target: x86_64-redhat-linux
Configured with: ../configure --enable-bootstrap --enable-languages=c,c++,fortran,objc,obj-c++,ada,go,d,lto --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --with-bugurl=http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --enable-checking=release --enable-multilib --with-system-zlib --enable-__cxa_atexit --disable-libunwind-exceptions --enable-gnu-unique-object --enable-linker-build-id --with-gcc-major-version-only --with-linker-hash-style=gnu --enable-plugin --enable-initfini-array --with-isl --enable-offload-targets=nvptx-none --without-cuda-driver --enable-gnu-indirect-function --enable-cet --with-tune=generic --with-arch_32=i686 --build=x86_64-redhat-linux
Thread model: posix
Supported LTO compression algorithms: zlib zstd
gcc version 10.1.1 20200507 (Red Hat 10.1.1-1) (GCC) 
COLLECT_GCC_OPTIONS='-v' '-mtune=generic' '-march=x86-64'
 /usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/cc1 -quiet -v test.c -quiet -dumpbase test.c -mtune=generic -march=x86-64 -auxbase test -version -o /tmp/ccnYOs3h.s
GNU C17 (GCC) version 10.1.1 20200507 (Red Hat 10.1.1-1) (x86_64-redhat-linux)
        compiled by GNU C version 10.1.1 20200507 (Red Hat 10.1.1-1), GMP version 6.1.2, MPFR version 4.0.2-p7, MPC version 1.1.0, isl version isl-0.16.1-GMP

GGC heuristics: --param ggc-min-expand=100 --param ggc-min-heapsize=131072
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/include-fixed"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/../../../../x86_64-redhat-linux/include"
#include "..." search starts here:
#include <...> search starts here:
 /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/include
 /usr/local/include
 /usr/include
End of search list.
GNU C17 (GCC) version 10.1.1 20200507 (Red Hat 10.1.1-1) (x86_64-redhat-linux)
        compiled by GNU C version 10.1.1 20200507 (Red Hat 10.1.1-1), GMP version 6.1.2, MPFR version 4.0.2-p7, MPC version 1.1.0, isl version isl-0.16.1-GMP

GGC heuristics: --param ggc-min-expand=100 --param ggc-min-heapsize=131072
Compiler executable checksum: 2a9bc6ce6f3ead0e8f0df26a0d7bce6a
COLLECT_GCC_OPTIONS='-v' '-mtune=generic' '-march=x86-64'
 as -v --64 -o /tmp/ccHZXJoe.o /tmp/ccnYOs3h.s
GNU assembler version 2.34 (x86_64-redhat-linux) using BFD version version 2.34-2.fc32
COMPILER_PATH=/usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/:/usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/:/usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/:/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/:/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/
LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/:/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/../../../../lib64/:/lib/../lib64/:/usr/lib/../lib64/:/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/../../../:/lib/:/usr/lib/
COLLECT_GCC_OPTIONS='-v' '-mtune=generic' '-march=x86-64'
 /usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/collect2 -plugin /usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/liblto_plugin.so -plugin-opt=/usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/lto-wrapper -plugin-opt=-fresolution=/tmp/ccgLNqIi.res -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc_s -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lc -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc_s --build-id --no-add-needed --eh-frame-hdr --hash-style=gnu -m elf_x86_64 -dynamic-linker /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/../../../../lib64/crt1.o /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/../../../../lib64/crti.o /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/crtbegin.o -L/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10 -L/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/../../../../lib64 -L/lib/../lib64 -L/usr/lib/../lib64 -L/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/../../.. /tmp/ccHZXJoe.o -lgcc --push-state --as-needed -lgcc_s --pop-state -lc -lgcc --push-state --as-needed -lgcc_s --pop-state /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/crtend.o /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/10/../../../../lib64/crtn.o
COLLECT_GCC_OPTIONS='-v' '-mtune=generic' '-march=x86-64'

Notice the additional objects that are added by default in the last step. These define the various sections that are necessary for the executable to run. If you are running the steps yourself, you still need to include them.

References:

1 Like
6

Generally you should not use ld directly unless you know what you’re doing. Using the gcc to compile and link will do the right thing.

1 Like