Unclear how to compile a static binary

[justinas]

Describe the bug

The V website claims that "You get a single statically linked binary". However, by default the compiler produces a dynamic binary, and there seems to be no way to produce a working static binary.

Reproduction Steps

Compile any code with V. Result is a dynamically linked binary.

Expected Behavior

Expected V to produce a statically linked binary.

Current Behavior

Compiling without any additional flags produces a dynamic binary:

$ cat hello.v
fn main() {
    println("hello world")
}
$ v hello.v
$ file hello
hello: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, not stripped

Compiling with musl-gcc as suggested in #19792 (comment) does not work because pthreads fail to link:

$ v -cc musl-gcc -cg hello.v
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(gc.o): in function `open_proc_fd':
gc.c:(.text+0x13a7): undefined reference to `__snprintf_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: gc.c:(.text+0x13ba): undefined reference to `__open_2'
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(gc.o): in function `GC_fault_handler':
gc.c:(.text+0x14aa): undefined reference to `__longjmp_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(gc.o): in function `GC_with_callee_saves_pushed':
gc.c:(.text+0x2f2c): undefined reference to `getcontext'
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(gc.o): in function `GC_printf':
gc.c:(.text+0x420a): undefined reference to `__vsnprintf_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(gc.o): in function `GC_log_printf':
gc.c:(.text+0x4867): undefined reference to `__vsnprintf_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(gc.o): in function `GC_err_printf':
gc.c:(.text+0x79f4): undefined reference to `__vsnprintf_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(gc.o): in function `GC_print_callers':
gc.c:(.text+0x7c54): undefined reference to `__snprintf_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: gc.c:(.text+0x7cef): undefined reference to `__snprintf_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: gc.c:(.text+0x7d36): undefined reference to `__memcpy_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: gc.c:(.text+0x7e64): undefined reference to `__snprintf_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(gc.o): in function `GC_print_all_errors.part.0':
gc.c:(.text+0x826e): undefined reference to `__memcpy_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: gc.c:(.text+0x828a): undefined reference to `__memset_chk'
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(gc.o): in function `GC_init':
gc.c:(.text+0xf53e): undefined reference to `gnu_get_libc_version'
/usr/bin/ld: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a(pthread_start.o): in function `GC_pthread_start_inner':
pthread_start.c:(.text+0x82): undefined reference to `__pthread_register_cancel'
/usr/bin/ld: pthread_start.c:(.text+0xa9): undefined reference to `__pthread_unregister_cancel'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
builder error:
==================
C error found. It should never happen, when compiling pure V code.
This is a V compiler bug, please report it using `v bug file.v`,
or goto https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/new/choose .
You can also use #help on Discord: https://discord.gg/vlang .

Compiling with -freestanding as suggested by a Stack Overflow answer does produce a static binary, but it also makes V not link the C standard library at all (statically or dynamically). Since basic functionality of V depends on libc, this means that even basic code does not work out of the box in this mode:

$ cat array.v
fn main() {
    mut foo := [1, 2, 3]
    foo.sort()
    println(foo)
}
$ v -freestanding array.v
$ file array
array: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=19986c1fa887f421581deb1982106b06a5a33ee6, not stripped
$ ./array
V panicsort does not work with -freestanding

Possible Solution

V should either:

1. Output static binaries by default, since that is the claim on the front page.
2. Provide a dedicated, well documented flag that would link the resulting binary statically instead of dynamically, e.g. v -static. V shouldn't lose basic functionality when the code is compiled this way.

Additional Information/Context

No response

V version

V 0.4.6 4a7c70c

Environment details (OS name and version, etc.)

$ v doctor
V full version: V 0.4.6 4a7c70c
OS: linux, Linux version 6.6.33 (nixbld@localhost) (gcc (GCC) 13.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.41) #1-NixOS SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Jun 12 09:13:03 UTC 2024 (chroot)
Processor: 16 cpus, 64bit, little endian, AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U with Radeon Graphics

getwd: /home/justinas/vlang-testcases
vexe: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler/v
vexe mtime: 2024-06-28 20:18:31

vroot: OK, value: /home/justinas/vlang-box/compiler
VMODULES: OK, value: /home/justinas/.vmodules
VTMP: OK, value: /tmp/v_1000

Git version: git version 2.43.0
Git vroot status: weekly.2024.26-14-g4a7c70c9 (3 commit(s) behind V master)
.git/config present: true

CC version: cc (Ubuntu 13.2.0-23ubuntu4) 13.2.0
thirdparty/tcc status: thirdparty-linux-amd64 40e5cbb5

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[JalonSolov]

v -cflags "-static" hello.v

Results in

$ file hello
hello: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=5218322b2e2cfe1833e376dff28d3a93ddf4c9be, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, not stripped

[justinas]

v -cflags "-static" hello.v

Results in

$ file hello
hello: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=5218322b2e2cfe1833e376dff28d3a93ddf4c9be, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, not stripped

Cool! It does work on Ubuntu. On NixOS, you need to have glibc.static.

$ nix-shell -p glibc.static vlang
$ v -cflags -static hello.v
$ file ./hello
./hello: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), statically linked, for GNU/Linux 3.10.0, not stripped
$ ./hello
hello world

I still think that either this should be made the default, or the necessary flags clearly documented, or the claims about producing static binaries adjusted.

On another note, -cflags will of course have no effect on the native backend, so eventually (once native backend is viable) something like a dedicated -static flag will be necessary anyway.

[JalonSolov]

I doubt it will be made the default, as it increases the file size by quite a bit...

[jalon@7950x ~]$ v hello.v
[jalon@7950x ~]$ ls -l hello
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jalon jalon 701432 Jun 29 15:56 hello
[jalon@7950x ~]$ v -cflags -static hello.v
[jalon@7950x ~]$ ls -l hello
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jalon jalon 1416784 Jun 29 15:56 hello
[jalon@7950x ~]$ 

... over twice as large output.

However, agreed that it could be made more obvious how to achieve statically linked binaries, and that it will also be necessary for a switch that works with the native backend... once that's actually working. :-)

[abenoit-reeliant]

(sorry if this is not the right place to ask this, but it seems related to this documentation issue) Are there currently known restrictions to the use of the -static flag ? I noticed that if I simply add 'import json' to any v program (even a simple "hello world" that doesn't actually use the json module beyond the import), then the build crashes when using the -static flag, which limits the usability of this flag (because, as the documentation says, of the ubiquitous nature of JSON)

Here is a sample input (in Ubuntu 24.04 on WSL):

$ cat src/main.v
module main

import json

fn main() {
        println('Static with json')
}

$ v -cflags '-static' .
src/main.v:3:8: warning: module 'json' is imported but never used
    1 | module main
    2 | 
    3 | import json
      |        ~~~~
    4 | 
    5 | fn main() {
================== C compilation error (from tcc): ==============
cc: [PATH_REDACTED]vlang/thirdparty/tcc/lib/libgc.a: error: 'GC_noop1_ptr' defined twice
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '__tls_get_addr'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '__gcc_personality_v0'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '_Unwind_Resume'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '_Unwind_GetCFA'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '_Unwind_ForcedUnwind'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '_Unwind_GetIP'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '_Unwind_Backtrace'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '__ehdr_start'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '__multf3'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '__addtf3'
cc: tcc: error: undefined symbol '__unordtf2'
... (the original output was 13 lines long, and was truncated to 12 lines)
=================================================================
(You can pass `-cg`, or `-show-c-output` as well, to print all the C error messages).
builder error: 
==================

[spytheman]

That is a tcc limitation. Try also passing -cc gcc @abenoit-reeliant .

#0 09:01:41 ^ master ~/v>cat xx.v
module main

import json

fn main() {
        println('Static with json')
}
#0 09:02:36 ^ master ~/v>v -cc gcc -cflags -static xx.v
xx.v:3:8: warning: module 'json' is imported but never used
    1 | module main
    2 |
    3 | import json
      |        ~~~~
    4 |
    5 | fn main() {
#0 09:02:45 ^ master ~/v>ll xx
-rwxrwxr-x 1 delian delian 2425920 Jul 30 09:02 xx*
#0 09:02:50 ^ master ~/v>file xx
xx: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=d22aa5d296e70147bc6fd4218ccbd7880a923e6d, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, with debug_info, not stripped
#0 09:02:53 ^ master ~/v>sstrip xx
#0 09:03:32 ^ master ~/v>ll xx
-rwxrwxr-x 1 delian delian 1268080 Jul 30 09:03 xx*
#0 09:03:33 ^ master ~/v>
#0 09:03:36 ^ master ~/v>upx xx
                       Ultimate Packer for eXecutables
                          Copyright (C) 1996 - 2018
UPX 3.95        Markus Oberhumer, Laszlo Molnar & John Reiser   Aug 26th 2018

        File size         Ratio      Format      Name
   --------------------   ------   -----------   -----------
   1268080 ->    507060   39.99%   linux/amd64   xx

Packed 1 file.
#0 09:03:45 ^ master ~/v>ll xx
-rwxrwxr-x 1 delian delian 507060 Jul 30 09:03 xx*
#0 09:03:48 ^ master ~/v>./xx
Static with json
#0 09:03:50 ^ master ~/v>

With -cc gcc -cflags -static -prod -gc none:

[abenoit-reeliant]

Thanks for the detailed response @spytheman . I'll try that.