Trivial Eigen3 Tensor program does not build without -On - c++

Question

I'm trying to build a write of software with the Tensor module provided as unsupported from eigen3. I've written a simple piece of code that will build with a simple application of VectorXd (just printing it to stdout), and will also build with an analogous application of Tensor in place of the VectorXd, but WILL NOT build when I do not throw an optimization flag (-On). Note that my build is from within a conda enviromnent that is using conda-forge compilers, so the g++ in what follows is the g++ obtained from conda forge for ubuntu. It says its name in the error messages following, if that is perceived to be the issue.
I have a feeling this is not about the program I'm trying to write, but just in case I've included an mwe.cpp that seems to produce the error. The code follows:
#include <eigen3/Eigen/Dense>
#include <eigen3/unsupported/Eigen/CXX11/Tensor>
#include <iostream>
using namespace Eigen;
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
VectorXd v(6);
v << 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;
cout << v.cwiseSqrt() << "\n";
Tensor<double, 1> t(6);
for (auto i=0; i<v.size(); i++){
t(i) = v(i);
}
cout << "\n";
for (auto i=0; i<t.size(); i++){
cout << t(i) << " ";
}
cout << "\n";
return 0;
}
If the above code is compiled without any optimizations, like:
g++ -I ~/miniconda3/envs/myenv/include/ mwe.cpp -o mwe
I get the following compiler error:
/home/myname/miniconda3/envs/myenv/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-conda_cos6-linux-gnu/7.3.0/../../../../x86_64-conda_cos6-linux-gnu/bin/ld: /tmp/cc2q8gj4.o: in function `Eigen::internal::(anonymous namespace)::get_random_seed()':
mwe.cpp:(.text+0x15): undefined reference to `clock_gettime'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
If instead I ask for 'n' optimization level, like the following:
g++ -I ~/miniconda3/envs/loos/include/ -On mwe.cpp -o mwe
The program builds without complaint and I get expected output:
$ ./mwe
1
1.41421
1.73205
2
2.23607
2.44949
1 2 3 4 5 6
I have no clue why this little program, or the real program I'm trying to write, would be trying to get a random seed for anything. Any advice would be appreciated. The reason why I would like to build without optimization is so that debugging is easier. I actually thought all this was being caused by debug flags, but I realized that my build tool's debug setting didn't ask for optimization and narrowed that down to the apparent cause. If I throw -g -O1 I do not see the error.
Obviously, if one were to comment out all the code that has to do with the Tensor module, that is everthing in main above 'return' and below the cwiseSqrt() line, and also the include statement, the code builds and produces expected output.

Answer 1

Technically, this is a linker error (g++ calls the compiler as well as the linker, depending on the command line arguments). And you get linker-errors if an externally defined function is called from somewhere, even if the code is never reached.
When compiling with optimizations enabled, g++ will optimize away uncalled functions (outside the global namespace), thus you get no linker errors. You may want to try -Og instead of -O1 for better debugging experience.
The following code should produce similar behavior:
int foo(); // externally defined
namespace { // anonymous namespace
// defined inside this module, but never called
int bar() {
return foo();
}
}
int main() {
// if you un-comment this line, the
// optimized version will fail as well:
// ::bar();
}
According to man clock_gettime you need to link with -lrt if your glibc version is older than 2.17 -- maybe that is the case for your setup:
g++ -I ~/miniconda3/envs/myenv/include/ mwe.cpp -o mwe -lrt