Undefined reference errors when linking GLFW with MinGW

Question

I know this issue is quite common on SO but none of the other answers seem to work me. Here is the documentation for GLFW for building applications with MinGW, which is what I want to do. I made a minimum reproducible example here:

test.c:

#include <glfw3.h>

int main() {
    glfwInit();
    glfwTerminate();
    return 0;
}

And here is what I want to do:

gcc -c test.c -Iinclude
gcc test.o -lglfw3 -lgdi32 -o test.exe

And here is the error is gives me:

test.o:test.c:(.text+0xc): undefined reference to `glfwInit'
test.o:test.c:(.text+0x11): undefined reference to `glfwTerminate'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status

List of things I have tried:

I have tried both the 32bit and 64bit glfw3 static libraries.
I have tried also linking other libraries references on the documentation I specified earlier such as kernel32 and user32 with no change to the error.
I have tried changing the order in which I link libraries.

I am slightly confused with this error, are the definitions for glfwInit and glfwTerminate not somewhere in the libglfw3.a? Surely they are? But, if so why does the linker throw undefined reference error?

@user253751 I have it in the current working directory when I run the gcc commands, I also tried messing up the name to check that gcc did find the correct file. — ripytide, Feb 18 '21 at 14:29

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 18 '21 at 15:34

0

the problems whose title starts with undefined reference are automatically problems related to the editing of links (the generation of your final binary due to the link editor, which takes place at the very end of the compilation process )

you have to make sure that every required library is not only present on your system, but also that your build instruction does indeed take the required library. Under Gcc, this corresponds to the -l option (note, it's a lowercase L and not an uppercase i;))

answered Feb 18 '21 at 15:34

Yazid Med

67
7

Is that not what I did with ```gcc test.o -lglfw3 -lgdi32 -o test.exe```? – ripytide Feb 18 '21 at 15:39
i think the solution is to use -lglfw rather than -lglfw3 – Yazid Med Feb 18 '21 at 15:53
The static library from glfw is named libglfw3.a – ripytide Feb 18 '21 at 15:57
I know that gcc can see the library but it can't SEE the definitions inside it. – ripytide Feb 18 '21 at 15:57
the only thing i can suggest is to check this – Yazid Med Feb 18 '21 at 16:05
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43445942/opengl-glfw-undefined-reference-to-glfwinit – Yazid Med Feb 18 '21 at 16:05
I read that, I am trying to static link here but I will give the shared libraries a shot now. – ripytide Feb 18 '21 at 16:16
Goodluck Sorry that I couldn't help – Yazid Med Feb 18 '21 at 16:17

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 18 '21 at 17:52

0

I found the solution to this problem was to give the file name of libglfw3.a directly in the gcc arguments instead of using the -l argument so the working second gcc command should be:

gcc test.o libglfw3.a -lgdi32

answered Feb 18 '21 at 17:52

ripytide

327
2
14

Undefined reference errors when linking GLFW with MinGW

2 Answers2