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macOS ./configure fails - C compiler cannot create executables.

M

m.prebble

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hi,

Normally google is my friend when it comes to these things, but now even it has failed me. I apologise in advance if this has been answered elsewhere.

A long-time PC/linux user, have recently switched to Mac (now they are Intel!) Am running Lepoard, and trying to compile several tool chains (cross compilers for ARM (2.95) and CRIS (1.64) architectures.

After getting over the "unrecognised host" stumbling block, the ./configure operation fails again:

Code: 
[Beginning truncated ]*
Configuring opcodes...
loading cache ../config.cache
checking host system type... i386-apple-darwin10.2.0
checking target system type... arm-unknown-elf
checking build system type... i386-apple-darwin10.2.0
checking for gcc... (cached) gcc
checking whether the C compiler (gcc -g -O2 -W -Wall ) works... yes
checking whether the C compiler (gcc -g -O2 -W -Wall ) is a cross-compiler... no
checking whether we are using GNU C... (cached) yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... (cached) yes
checking for POSIXized ISC... no
checking for a BSD compatible install... (cached) /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... (cached) yes
checking for working aclocal... found
checking for working autoconf... found
checking for working automake... found
checking for working autoheader... found
checking for working makeinfo... found
checking for ar... (cached) ar
checking for ranlib... (cached) ranlib
checking for ranlib... (cached) ranlib
checking for ld used by GCC... (cached) /usr/libexec/gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/4.2.1/ld
checking if the linker (/usr/libexec/gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/4.2.1/ld) is GNU ld... (cached) no
checking for BSD-compatible nm... (cached) /usr/bin/nm
checking whether ln -s works... (cached) yes
loading cache ../config.cache within ltconfig
checking for object suffix... o
checking for executable suffix... (cached) .dSYM
checking for gcc option to produce PIC... -fPIC
checking if gcc PIC flag -fPIC works... yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.lo... yes
checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions ... no
checking if gcc static flag -static works... none
checking if the linker (/usr/libexec/gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/4.2.1/ld) is GNU ld... no
checking whether the linker (/usr/libexec/gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/4.2.1/ld) supports shared libraries... no
checking command to parse /usr/bin/nm output... rm: conftest.dSYM: is a directory
ok
checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... unsupported
checking for /usr/libexec/gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/4.2.1/ld option to reload object files... -r
checking dynamic linker characteristics... no
checking if libtool supports shared libraries... no
checking whether to build shared libraries... no
checking whether to build static libraries... yes
checking for objdir... .libs
creating libtool
loading cache ../config.cache
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no
checking for Cygwin environment... (cached) no
checking for mingw32 environment... (cached) no
checking for executable suffix... (cached) .dSYM
checking for gcc... (cached) gcc
checking whether the C compiler (gcc -g -O2 -W -Wall ) works... no
configure: error: installation or configuration problem: C compiler cannot create executables.

Examining the config.log, there are A LOT of errors about conftest.dSYM being a directory. I attach the tail of the failing config.log

Code: 
marcus-mbp:opcodes marcus$ cat config.log 
This file contains any messages produced by compilers while
running configure, to aid debugging if configure makes a mistake.

configure:605: checking host system type
configure:626: checking target system type
configure:644: checking build system type
configure:669: checking for gcc
configure:782: checking whether the C compiler (gcc -g -O2 -W -Wall ) works
configure:798: gcc -o conftest -g -O2 -W -Wall   conftest.c  1>&5
configure:795: warning: return type defaults to 'int'
configure:824: checking whether the C compiler (gcc -g -O2 -W -Wall ) is a cross-compiler
configure:829: checking whether we are using GNU C
configure:857: checking whether gcc accepts -g
configure:889: checking for POSIXized ISC
configure:927: checking for a BSD compatible install
configure:980: checking whether build environment is sane
configure:1037: checking whether make sets ${MAKE}
configure:1083: checking for working aclocal
configure:1096: checking for working autoconf
configure:1109: checking for working automake
configure:1122: checking for working autoheader
configure:1135: checking for working makeinfo
configure:1158: checking for ar
configure:1190: checking for ranlib
configure:1328: checking for ranlib
configure:1367: checking for ld used by GCC
configure:1429: checking if the linker (/usr/libexec/gcc/i686-apple-darwin10/4.2.1/ld) is GNU ld
configure:1445: checking for BSD-compatible nm
configure:1481: checking whether ln -s works
ltconfig:603: checking for object suffix
ltconfig:604: gcc -c -g -O2 -W -Wall  conftest.c 1>&5
ltconfig:776: checking if gcc PIC flag -fPIC works
ltconfig:777: gcc -c -g -O2 -W -Wall -fPIC -DPIC  conftest.c 1>&5
ltconfig:829: checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o
ltconfig:830: gcc -c -g -O2 -W -Wall -o out/conftest2.o  conftest.c 1>&5
ltconfig:862: checking if gcc supports -c -o file.lo
ltconfig:863: gcc -c -g -O2 -W -Wall -c -o conftest.lo  conftest.c 1>&5
ltconfig:914: checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions
ltconfig:915: gcc -c -g -O2 -W -Wall -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -c conftest.c  conftest.c 1>&5
ltconfig:958: checking if gcc static flag -static works
ltconfig:959: gcc -o conftest -g -O2 -W -Wall   -static conftest.c  1>&5
conftest.c:1: warning: return type defaults to 'int'
ld: library not found for -lcrt0.o
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
ltconfig:1635: checking if global_symbol_pipe works
ltconfig:1636: gcc -c -g -O2 -W -Wall  conftest.c 1>&5
conftest.c:9: warning: return type defaults to 'int'
ltconfig:1639: eval "/usr/bin/nm conftest.o | sed -n -e 's/^.*[ 	]\([BCDEGRST]\)[ 	][ 	]*\(\)\([_A-Za-z][_A-Za-z0-9]*\)$/\1 \2\3 \3/p' > conftest.nm"
cannot find nm_test_var in conftest.nm
ltconfig:1635: checking if global_symbol_pipe works
ltconfig:1636: gcc -c -g -O2 -W -Wall  conftest.c 1>&5
conftest.c:9: warning: return type defaults to 'int'
ltconfig:1639: eval "/usr/bin/nm conftest.o | sed -n -e 's/^.*[ 	]\([BCDEGRST]\)[ 	][ 	]*\(_\)\([_A-Za-z][_A-Za-z0-9]*\)$/\1 \2\3 \3/p' > conftest.nm"
ltconfig:1691: gcc -o conftest -g -O2 -W -Wall -fno-builtin   conftest.c conftstm.o 1>&5
conftest.c:6: warning: 'main' is usually a function
configure:1714: checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles
configure:1737: checking for Cygwin environment
configure:1770: checking for mingw32 environment
configure:1801: checking for executable suffix
configure:1837: checking for gcc
configure:1950: checking whether the C compiler (gcc -g -O2 -W -Wall ) works
configure:1966: gcc -o conftest.dSYM -g -O2 -W -Wall   conftest.c  1>&5
configure:1963: warning: return type defaults to 'int'
ld: can't open output file for writing: conftest.dSYM, errno=21
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
configure: failed program was:

#line 1961 "configure"
#include "confdefs.h"

main(){return(0);}

This is frustrating as, errno 22 is "Is a directory". Why does it create a directory? I tried running a small script that replaced "rm -f conftest.*" with rm -rf conftest*" to remove these directories, but no joy.

I would appreciate if someone could advise what might be wrong.
p.s. As these are toolchains, the configure needs to be run as root.
The error is the same for both tool chains.

Kernel version:
Code: 
marcus-mbp:srcs marcus$ uname -v
Darwin Kernel Version 10.2.0: Tue Nov  3 10:37:10 PST 2009; root:xnu-1486.2.11~1/RELEASE_I386

Thanks in advance,
 
The only help I can provide is that ld can't create the file because a directory exists with the same name :

Code: 
$ cat test.c
#include <stdlib.h>

int main()
{
	return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
$ gcc -o test test.c
$ rm test
$ mkdir test
$ gcc -o test test.c
ld: can't open output file for writing: test, errno=21
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

This is not really a programming question, but a package compiling/installing question I'm guessing. Which package are you trying to build exactly ? Maybe if we can download it and try it out, we can see if there's a bug somewhere in the autoconf generated script.

Have you tried grabbing the package from CVS/SVN and using OS X versions automake/autoconf to rebuild the build scripts ?
 
If any of the following items are what you're after look into MacPorts.

arm-aout-binutils @2.17 (cross, devel)
FSF Binutils for arm-aout cross development

arm-aout-gcc @3.3.6 (cross, devel)
gcc cross-compilers for arm-aout, with newlib runtime library.

arm-elf-binutils @2.20.51.0.2 (cross, devel)
FSF Binutils for arm-elf cross development

arm-elf-gcc @4.3.2 (cross, devel)
gcc cross-compilers for arm-elf, with newlib runtime library.

arm-elf-gcc3 @3.4.6 (cross, devel)
gcc 3.x cross-compilers for arm-elf, with newlib runtime library.

arm-none-linux-gnueabi-binutils @2005q3-2 (cross, devel)
FSF Binutils for arm-none-linux-gnueabi cross development, with Code Sourcery patches (for Nokia Internet Tablet)

arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc @2005q3-2 (cross, devel)
gcc 3.x cross-compilers for arm-none-linux-gnueabi.

arm-none-linux-gnueabi-runtime @cs2005q3.2 (cross, devel)
headers and precompiled libraries arm-none-linux-gnueabi (Nokia Internet Tablet), obtained from scratchbox.

arm-rtems-binutils @2.18 (cross, devel)
FSF Binutils for arm-rtems cross development

arm-rtems-gcc @4.2.3 (cross, devel)
gcc cross-compilers for arm-rtems, with newlib runtime library.
 
Hi, I tried macports first actually.
The problem is, the target is a uClinux based MMU-less CPU so the source needs some patching first!

Also, it doesn't help me for building the other toolchain for CRIS.
Ultimately I want to fix the build problem on my machine.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!
 
I'm having the same issue building a toolchain for m68hc12.

The issue is debugging symbols on MacOS are put into a directory called dSYM instead of a file.

This makes autoconf go batty. Supposedly, they patched autoconf, I've found the patches. But, apparently those MacOS specific patches didn't make it into the version that Apple is distributing with Xcode.

Cute, eh?

I haven't managed to get mine working yet, but I should be able to sort this out today and I'll let ya know how I did it.
 
Thank you, this is the most useful reply to this thread!! Cute is not quite the word I would use though ... I got so frustrated with not being able to build either arm or cris toolchains that I installed Linux. Typical apple, why make it easy?

But please, please do share your experiences if you do get it to work. I appreciate your time,

Marcus
 
This was really easy to fix once I did a little googling on how autoconf works.

Apparently, the fix IS in the xcode autoconf, the issue is that the ./configure script is built by the autoconf of the person packaging the software. Simply delete configure and run autoconf. It will recreate it and you'll be good to go.

At least, this worked for compiling binutils for 68HC12.
 
nhtshot said:
This was really easy to fix once I did a little googling on how autoconf works.

Apparently, the fix IS in the xcode autoconf, the issue is that the ./configure script is built by the autoconf of the person packaging the software. Simply delete configure and run autoconf. It will recreate it and you'll be good to go.

At least, this worked for compiling binutils for 68HC12.
Click to expand...

I was trying to compile older versions of PHP (5.2.[1-4]) and was having this problem. Deleting 'configure', running 'autoconf', then running 'configure' worked beatuifully. Thanks!
 
Fixed

Just wanted to throw in my thanks to nhtshot! I was having trouble compiling PHP 5.2 on Mac OS X 10.6. It was throwing an error saying that the compiler couldn't write the executable. Then the configure.log stated ld: can't open output file for writing: conftest.dSYM. I tried the autoconf trick and that fixed it! So I'm here to say thanks and add a little more SEO bait to this thread so anyone having my same issue might find the solution even quicker.

Thanks!!
 
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