C - makefile error undefined reference to main

Question

    dealer: dealer.o readline.o car.o
        gcc -o dealer readline.o car.o

    dealer.o: dealer.c car.h readline.h
        gcc -c dealer.c

    readline.o: readline.c car.h readline.h
        gcc -c readline.c

    car.o: car.c car.h readline.h
        gcc -c car.c

make dealer
gcc -c dealer.c
gcc -c readline.c
gcc -c car.c
gcc -o dealer readline.o car.o
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/4.4.7/../../../../lib64/crt1.o: In function `_start':
(.text+0x20): undefined reference to `main'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [dealer] Error 1

I keep getting the error above. My dealer.c does indeed contain 'main'.

Does anybody have an idea on whats going on?

Pass `-Wall -g` to `gcc`. See [this](https://stackoverflow.com/a/44426536/841108) — Basile Starynkevitch, Nov 14 '17 at 21:10
I suspect `dealer.o` is probably supposed to be one of the object files linked into your `dealer` binary. Edit: oh, I didn't notice it was already covered in the answers. — Christian Gibbons, Nov 14 '17 at 21:14

Jean-François Fabre · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-14T21:09:19.703

6

your link line:

gcc -o dealer readline.o car.o

doesn't contain dealer.o, which explains why main is missing. Should be:

gcc -o dealer dealer.o readline.o car.o

(there's no automatic/guessed relation between the name of the final executable indicated by -o dealer and the object file dealer.o)

edited Nov 14 '17 at 21:09

answered Nov 14 '17 at 21:04

Jean-François Fabre

137,073
23
153
219

1

That was it! Thank you!! edit: Thanks for your edit explaining things. – jchav Nov 14 '17 at 21:08

C - makefile error undefined reference to main

1 Answers1