dmd -D == ouch!!

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

Hi all,

While trying out David Simcha's std.rational (see: 
http://forum.dlang.org/post/mailman.1774.1380289646.1719.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com 
and please offer feedback if this is of interest to you...), I tried building 
the docs and ran into the following amusing error message:

$ dmd -D rational.d

/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 0 has invalid symbol index 11
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 1 has invalid symbol index 12
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 2 has invalid symbol index 2
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 3 has invalid symbol index 2
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 4 has invalid symbol index 11
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 5 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 6 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 7 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 8 has invalid symbol index 12
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 9 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 10 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 11 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 12 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 13 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 14 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 15 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 16 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 17 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 18 has invalid symbol index 13
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_info): 
relocation 19 has invalid symbol index 21
/usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o(.debug_line): 
relocation 0 has invalid symbol index 2
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.8/../../../x86_64-linux-gnu/crt1.o: In function 
`_start':
(.text+0x20): undefined reference to `main'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
--- errorlevel 1

Ouch, I think you'll agree!

Of course, it only took a second's thought to realize that I should have used

     dmd -o- -D rational.d

... but the error message is pretty opaque.  How feasible would it be to handle 
the case where the -D flag is passed with a nicer error message limiting itself to:

     (.text+0x20): undefined reference to `main'
     collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
     To build only documentation, use dmd -o- -D

(I'd ask for it to just build the docs without erroring, but that would surely 
make for overlooked errors in some cases where you _should_ find main.)

Thanks & best wishes,

     -- Joe