What / where is __scrt_common_main_seh? - c++

A third party library in my program is trying to call __scrt_common_main_seh by way of the Microsoft library msvcrt.lib, but is defined by some unknown library and therefore gives a linker error. I don't know what this function is supposed to do or where it is defined.
I looked online for this function, but did not find any clues except for general descriptions of what linker errors are.
I believe it might be doing some setup for win32 GUI applications. The library which defines it might be configured as project dependency by Visual Studio but my project is using Bazel.

Summary
For non-console applications having error error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol main referenced in function "int __cdecl __scrt_common_main_seh(void)" try adding linker flag /ENTRY:wWinMainCRTStartup or /ENTRY:WinMainCRTStartup
For console applications having that error, make sure to implement a main() function.
Details
This answer shows that __scrt_common_main_seh is normally called during mainCRTStartup which is the default entry point for windows console applications. __scrt_common_main_seh is then (indirectly) responsible for calling main().
My program did not have a main() function, which might have prevented the compiler from generating __scrt_common_main_seh (Just speculating. I am totally clueless about who defines __scrt_common_main_seh)
I did find, however, that the library I was linking against defined a wWinMain() function. So I tried adding the linker flag /ENTRY:wWinMainCRTStartup and the linker error went away.

Related

Error LNK2019 when building Tensorflow debug

I try make a debug build of the CPU version of the C++ API of Tensorflow 2.0 in Windows. The command I use for building is:
bazel build -c dbg --copt=/w34716 tensorflow:tensorflow.dll
But when I build this I get this error:
depth_space_ops.lo.lib(depthtospace_op.obj) : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "public: void __cdecl tensorflow::functor::DepthToSpaceOpFunctor<struct Eigen::GpuDevice,struct Eigen::half,1>::operator()(struct Eigen::GpuDevice const &,class Eigen::TensorMap<class Eigen::Tensor<struct Eigen::half const ,4,1,__int64>,16,struct Eigen::MakePointer>,int,class Eigen::TensorMap<class Eigen::Tensor<struct Eigen::half,4,1,__int64>,16,struct Eigen::MakePointer>)" (??R?$DepthToSpaceOpFunctor#UGpuDevice#Eigen##Uhalf#2#$00#functor#tensorflow##QEAAXAEBUGpuDevice#Eigen##V?$TensorMap#V?$Tensor#$$CBUhalf#Eigen##$03$00_J#Eigen##$0BA#UMakePointer#2##4#HV?$TensorMap#V?$Tensor#Uhalf#Eigen##$03$00_J#Eigen##$0BA#UMakePointer#2##4##Z) referenced in function "public: virtual void __cdecl tensorflow::DepthToSpaceOp<struct Eigen::ThreadPoolDevice,struct Eigen::half>::Compute(class tensorflow::OpKernelContext *)" (?Compute#?$DepthToSpaceOp#UThreadPoolDevice#Eigen##Uhalf#2##tensorflow##UEAAXPEAVOpKernelContext#2##Z)
The only thing I found regarding this issue was this GitHub issue, which wasn't solved.
Does anyone know how to solve this issue?
Facing the same necessity, I dug around in the code and actually found the source of the problem: It is contained in the following two if blocks: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/v2.3.0/tensorflow/core/kernels/spacetodepth_op.cc#L129 and https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/v2.3.0/tensorflow/core/kernels/depthtospace_op.cc#L115.
If you are building a non-GPU version of the library in debug, it is sort of clear why the error happens: the if (std::is_same<Device, GPUDevice>::value) for the DepthToSpaceOp class, for example, parametrized with CPUDevice, would evaluate to if (false) during compile time. With any optimizations enabled, the code in the if-clause (which explicitly triggers DepthToSpaceOpFunctor with a template parameter GPUDevice - exactly the missing symbols you are getting) would not be compiled at all, and therefore not need to be linked.
In the debug build, it is still likely compiled, even though it is clear that it will never be executed. Then the linker tries to find the operator() for the DepthToSpaceOpFunctor template-parametrized with GPUDevice, and fails to do so.
A quick-and-dirty way to fix this is to comment out the entire if-clauses (if you are building a CPU-only dll) in both files mentioned above.
A more elegant solution is to avoid these linker errors via template specialization by changing the explicit references to GPUDevice to Device, since those will be in the code that is executed only when Device is GPUDevice. I will soon add a pull request to a similar issue I raised on github, hopefully, after a bit more testing.
Update: The pull request is submitted, you can find the code changes to fix this particular set of linker errors here: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/pull/42307/files#
For a GPU debug dll - I am not sure why these errors would still be there, but there are yet other linking errors in this case anyway ;)

Getting "error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _gnutls_free" when using GnuTLS 3.1.6 from Visual Studio 2012

I am attempting to build a project in Visual Studio 2012 that uses GnuTLS. I downloaded the latest official Windows build from the website, and created a link library by running lib /def:libgnutls-28.def in the bin directory form a Visual Studio command prompt.
After adding a typedef long ssize_t, the code compiles fine, but linking fails with the following error:
source_file.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _gnutls_free
C:\Path\to\executable.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals
I am calling gnutls_free to free some memory allocated and returned by the library. If I remove the call to gnutls_free, the project links successfully. Given that gnutls_free is just a global variable (containing a function pointer) exported by the library, I'm not sure why accessing it results in an unresolved reference to a different symbol. I have verified that gnutls_free is not #defineed to anything.
As a test, I tried doing gnutls_free_function test = gnutls_free; which also resulting in the link error. Running grep -w -r _gnutls_free . on the GnuTLS source code returns nothing, so I am at a loss.
Any ideas for getting this working would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT:
Adding __declspec(dllimport) to the declaration of gnutls_free in gnutls.h allows the link to succeed. Is there any way to accomplish this without maintaining a custom version of the header file?
There doesn't seem to be a way to have the linker or import library automatically dereference the IAT's pointer to the data item the same way that is done for functions (via a small trampoline function that is statically linked into the module importing the function). The __declspec(dllimport) attribute tells that compiler that this dereferencing needs to be done so it can insert code to perform the dereferencing of the IAT pointer implicitly. This allows exported data to be accessed and for functions allows the compiler to call the imported function via an indirect call through the IAT pointer rather than by calling the trampoline function.
See a couple of Raymond Chen's articles about dllimport for a good explanation of what goes on for function calls (he didn't discuss importing data, unfortunately):
Calling an imported function, the naive way
How a less naive compiler calls an imported function
The MS linker or import library doesn't have a mechanism to help the compiler get imported data in a 'naive' way - the compiler needs the the __delcspec(dllimport) hint that an extra dereference through the IAT is needed. Anyway, the point of all this is that it seems there's no way to import data except by using the __declspec(dllimport) attribute.
If you want to avoid modifying the gnutls distribution (which I can understand), here's one rather imperfect workaround:
You can create a small object file that contains nothing but a simple wrapper for gnutls_free(); since gnutls_free() has an interface with no real dependencies, you can have the necessary declarations 'hardcoded' instead of including gnutls.h:
typedef void (*gnutls_free_function) (void *);
__declspec(dllimport) extern gnutls_free_function gnutls_free;
void xgnutls_free(void* p)
{
gnutls_free(p);
}
Have your code call xgnutls_free() instead of gnutls_free().
Not a great solution - it requires your code to call a wrapper (so it's particularly not great if you'll be incorporating 3rd party code that might depend on gnutls_free()), but it might be good enough.

Unresolved Externals Nightmare

Hello industry veterans,
I am a junior in college embarking on my first summer programming internship, and I am in way over my head. The company I'm working for has purchased a colossal application from another company that has slowly been expanding and modifying it since the early 90's. The solution contains over 200,000 lines of code which are spread across more than 300 files. The entire solution has purportedly been written to ANSI-C++ standards. The code is almost entirely undocumented, and most of it looks like hieroglyphs to me. Ultimately, my job is to port this code to embedded Linux. At the moment, my job is simply to get it compiling using Visual Studio 2008 on Windows XP.
Today, I'm running into linker errors such as this one:
libcmtd.lib(sprintf.obj) : error LNK2005: _sprintf already defined in msvcrtd.lib(MSVCR90D.dll)
My understanding is that this often happens when different projects within a solution are compiled using different runtime libraries. There are 6 projects in my solution. 4 of them were set to compile using the multi-threaded debug DLL runtime library (/MDd), one of them was set to compile using the multi-threaded debug library (/MTd), and one of them was set to compile using the multi-threaded dll runtime library (/MD). The first thing I tried after receiving this error message was to change the /MTd and /MD switches to /MDd so that everything would have compiled with the same runtime libraries. Unfortunately, this led to the following error in afx.h:
fatal error C1189: #error : Building MFC application with /MD[d] (CRT dll version) requires MFC shared dll version. Please #define _AFXDLL or do not use /MD[d]
After some digging around, I discovered that it had already told me what I needed to do. I went ahead and changed the "Use of MFC" option under Project Properties->Configuration Properties->General to "Use MFC in a Shared DLL". At this point I started receiving dozens of unresolved external errors such as these:
dataPropertySheet.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "public: __thiscall CResizableSheet::CResizableSheet(unsigned short const *,class CWnd *,unsigned int)" (??0CResizableSheet##QAE#PBGPAVCWnd##I#Z) referenced in function "public: __thiscall CdataPropertySheet::CdataPropertySheet(unsigned short const *,class CWnd *,unsigned int)" (??0CdataPropertySheet##QAE#PBGPAVCWnd##I#Z)
ResizableLib.lib(ResizablePage.obj) : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: virtual int __thiscall CWnd::Create(char const *,char const *,unsigned long,struct tagRECT const &,class CWnd *,unsigned int,struct CCreateContext *)" (?Create#CWnd##UAEHPBD0KABUtagRECT##PAV1#IPAUCCreateContext###Z)
After reading through the MSDN pages on LNK2001 and LNK2019, I've realized I have no idea what's going on. These are not the sort of issues they've taught us how to deal with in school. I know my data structures, and that's about it. How I ended up where I am now is beyond me!
From my limited knowledge, it seems that the various debug and release versions of these modules are all tangled up in a web of preprocessor directives and #includes. There are a number of nested #ifdef checks and #define statements done in nearly every header and source file throughout the solution for environment variables, file names, macros, and possibly more. By making even small changes to my compiler settings, I seem to be redirecting large parts of the program to different libraries which have very different function definitions. This is my vague conceptual understanding of what's going on.
I feel as though I'm going to need a better understanding of how this code works before I stand any chance of troubleshooting these compiler errors. To that end, I've been trying to step through many of the files line by line to see where they lead, what objects and variables are in scope, and so on. Unfortunately, this doesn't get me very far, because every call to an external function is ambiguous, and I have no way of seeing through the preprocessor mess to know which version of any given function is supposed to be called.
I was looking around for magic solutions to map out the program and try to make sense of it. I tried one called Doxygen, but either I don't know how to use it properly or it's getting just as confused by the preprocessor stuff as I am.
My question is this:
What are my remaining options?
At this point it's a toss up between:
a.) Switch majors
b.) Jump off a bridge
Neither of these choices are going to help me better understand this code base and get it compiling. Does anybody have any better ideas? Similar experiences? Sage wisdom to share?
Thanks a ton,
-Alex
It appears you're using the CResizableSheet and CResizeablePage from CodeProject. If you're using the compiled static lib from that page, you could try downloading the source and compiling that with the matching /MDd setting and using the .lib it outputs in the linker input section of your project. I'd also suggest doing a clean all (go to build->batch build->select all then click clean) and then try building again to make sure everything is up to date.
I hear nursing is a great program ...
At the risk of being pedantic, what you are fighting with are linker errors, not compiler errors. My basic approach to this would be to create a new solution, and start adding projects one at a time, getting each one to build in turn.
I would also seriously consider trying to standardize the settings of each project as much as possible. The easiest way to do this is to create empty projects in your new solution, and copy the existing code into them.
To start with you should assume the following settings (related to MFC):
Debug: Use MFC in a shared DLL, /MDd
Release: Use MFC in a shared DLL, /MD
MDd and MD are the same mode, but one links against debug libraries with extra information for debugging.
Then all you can do is work on one project at a time. Note that if you create a new solution as suggested, you'll need to rebuild the dependency tree between projects. (Right click on a project and choose 'Dependencies', you'll see what I mean.)
When you run into problems doing this, you should make friends with a senior developer at your workplace =).
Compile everything with the same runtime libraries. End of story.

OpenCV 2.3 with Qt 4.3.7

I have successfully build and ran both Qt 4.3.7 and OpenCV 2.3 with Qt enabled. When I start a window using:
cvNamedWindow( "video", 0 );
I successfully load a full Qt interface! wonderful :)
However!! when I use the command
void callbackButton(int state, void* userdata){
int x;
x=3;
}
cvCreateButton(nameb2,callbackButton,nameb2,CV_CHECKBOX,0);
I get the error message
error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _cvCreateButton
I don't understand as the Qt interface already has lots of buttons on it? could someone please explain what I am missing from the include that could cause this?
Thanks!
You use the wrong parameters for to call to cvCreateButton. According to the documentation here the signature of the function is
cvCreateButton(const char* button_name CV_DEFAULT(NULL), CvButtonCallback on_change CV_DEFAULT(NULL), void* userdata CV_DEFAULT(NULL), int button_type CV_DEFAULT(CV_PUSH_BUTTON), int initial_button_state CV_DEFAULT(0)
and sample calls are:
cvCreateButton(NULL,callbackButton);
cvCreateButton("button2",callbackButton,NULL,CV_CHECKBOX,0);
cvCreateButton("button3",callbackButton,&value);
cvCreateButton("button5",callbackButton1,NULL,CV_RADIOBOX);
cvCreateButton("button6",callbackButton2,NULL,CV_PUSH_BUTTON,1);
and the declaration of the callback function has to be:
CV_EXTERN_C_FUNCPTR( *CvButtonCallback)(int state, void* userdata));
You get a linking error and not a compiler error because cvCreateButton has extern "C" linkage - which means that parameters cannot be checked at compile time.
I solved this issue by calling the function cv::createButton instead of cvCreateButton (which is if I am correct the way to call methods in OpenCV2).
The third argument must be a void*. Change to:
cvCreateButton(nameb2,callbackButton,NULL,CV_CHECKBOX,0);
and it will work.
Edit
The statement above was given an error.
The third needed argument is a "void *" - this is compatible with anything and thus neither C nor C++ should have a problem with what you were providing. You can not raise a linker error with that.
The only reason a linker error can be raised by coding is when you don't use prototypes (forgot to use the header file) in C++ and then C++ creates a mangled name on its own that wont be part of any library. In such a case the compiler will first tell you with a warning at compile time that you are missing the prototype (for C and C++) - and then the linker will probably raise an error (for c++ only).
If you don't see a prototype warning from the compiler then that is not your problem.
This is a linking error.
Try to add the opencv .lib file (or files) to the project libraries path.
This may help : VS2010 OpenCV.
Edit
Refined problem: Even if adding any OpenCV libary to your project the linking will fail.
Reason: The symbol is often simply not there in the libraries.
Solution: You have to change a few settings and compile them on your own.
See also: openCV 2.2 createButton LNK 2019 error in Visual Studio 2010

wxWidgets and "Implement_App" causes _main duplicate symbol error

I'm compiling a trivial wxWidgets app on MacOS X 10.6 with XCode 3.2
The linker is return an error about the symbol _main being defined twice:
once in main.mm
once in the test_app.cpp file.
After I commented out the macro:
Implement_App(TestApp)
The error went away, compiled & linked and I was able to run the application.
I haven't found this anywhere so any ideas about this?
IMPLEMENT_APP is a macro used in wxWidgets to create an entry point to the program without worrying about whether the program will be compiled on Windows, Mac, *nix, or whatever. As a result of this, IMPLEMENT_APP has to define main (or its equivalent, such as WinMain).
You might find the IMPLEMENT_APP_NO_MAIN macro to be useful. Check the other IMPLEMENT_APP_XXX functions in wx/app.h, too.
This paragraph from the wxApp overview is a little helpful too:
Note the use of IMPLEMENT_APP(appClass), which allows wxWidgets to dynamically create an instance of the application object at the appropriate point in wxWidgets initialization. Previous versions of wxWidgets used to rely on the creation of a global application object, but this is no longer recommended, because required global initialization may not have been performed at application object construction time.