Need help compiling

[Shogun05]

C:\Users\Shogun-Knight\Documents\EL\QuEST\QuEST\build>make
[ 80%] Built target QuEST
[ 90%] Linking C executable demo.exe
C:/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/13.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: QuEST/libQuEST.a(QuEST_validation.c.obj):QuEST_validati:(.text+0x99b): undefined reference to `invalidQuESTInputError'
C:/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/13.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: QuEST/libQuEST.a(QuEST_validation.c.obj):QuEST_validati:(.text+0x9af): undefined reference to `invalidQuESTInputError'
C:/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/13.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: QuEST/libQuEST.a(QuEST_validation.c.obj):QuEST_validati:(.text+0xa3b): undefined reference to `invalidQuESTInputError'
C:/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/13.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: QuEST/libQuEST.a(QuEST_validation.c.obj):QuEST_validati:(.text+0xa4f): undefined reference to `invalidQuESTInputError'
C:/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/13.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: QuEST/libQuEST.a(QuEST_validation.c.obj):QuEST_validati:(.text+0xaa8): undefined reference to `invalidQuESTInputError'
C:/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/13.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: QuEST/libQuEST.a(QuEST_validation.c.obj):QuEST_validati:(.text+0xb69): more undefined references to `invalidQuESTInputError' follow
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [demo.exe] Error 1
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/demo.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2

Encountering this error whenever I try to make the project. The earlier command i ran was:

cmake .. -G "MinGW Makefiles" -D[VAR=VALUE]

Where am i going wrong?

[TysonRayJones]

Hi there,
I hope you found a solution! I see you're compiling on Windows, and it looked like MinGW wasn't happy with the weak symbol for invalidQuESTInputError. Did you find out what caused this issue, or how to work around it?

[Shogun05]

Unfortunately I couldnt find a solution

[TysonRayJones]

Oh I'm sorry to hear that! Does closing the question mean you immediately gave up? :^) I'm happy to help you troubleshoot. Can you tell me your OS version, and the full commands with which you tried to compile through the terminal?

[Shogun05]

Haha yeah because i don't have much experience using make and cmake and it was kinda urgent to get the decoherence example compiled for our clg project. And as for the commands, the only one i remember running was the original command i gave in the issue. But gotta say cool project, I personally needed more experience with tools to actually run and build this :)

[TysonRayJones]

No problem at all! I totally get the need for getting things working quickly. It turns out anyway that MinGW (a "middleman" to get the GCC compiler working on Windows) doesn't even support weak symbols as used by QuEST in invalidQuESTInputError) according to this bug report. So there's little I could have helped!

This is useful to update QuEST's adverised compiler compatibility - although I swear I once compiled QuEST with MinGW, hence why it's mentioned in the README (as a fallback when NMake fails). I'll look into it, thanks very much for the tip off!