curl dependency in conjunction with Template Haskell causes "unknown symbol" errors

I've reported on this issue to the stack issue tracker here https://github.com/commercialhaskell/stack/issues/2752#issuecomment-257378515

The steps to reproduce are the following

• Make a new stack project (lts-5.3 in my case). stack new curl-test -resolver=lts-5,3
• Add curl as a dependency to the library.
• Modify the Lib file to the following

{-# LANGUAGE TemplateHaskell #-}
module Lib where

return []

someFunc :: IO ()
someFunc = return ()

The error that I get with GHC 8 is this

ghc.EXE: unable to load package `curl-1.3.8'
ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `stricmp'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol 'curl_strequal'

ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `curl_strequal'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol '.refptr.Curl_cstrdup'

ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `.refptr.Curl_cstrdup'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol 'curl_slist_free_all'

ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `curl_slist_free_all'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol 'Curl_ssl_connect_nonblocking'

ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `Curl_ssl_connect_nonblocking'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol '.refptr.Curl_crealloc'

ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `.refptr.Curl_crealloc'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol 'curl_msnprintf'

ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `curl_msnprintf'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol '.refptr.Curl_cmalloc'

ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `.refptr.Curl_cmalloc'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol 'Curl_verify_windows_version'

ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `Curl_verify_windows_version'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol 'Curl_sspi_global_init'

ghc.EXE: C:\Users\darwi\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\msys2-20150512\mingw64\lib\libcurl.a: unknown symbol `Curl_sspi_global_init'

ghc.EXE: Could not on-demand load symbol 'curl_global_init'

ghc.EXE: C:\sr\snapshots\df48cbae\lib\x86_64-windows-ghc-8.0.1\curl-1.3.8-B8AxMCtSRkiFrZLK4gerBe\HScurl-1.3.8-B8AxMCtSRkiFrZLK4gerBe.o: unknown symbol `curl_global_init'

but this still fails with GHC 7.10.3 with a similar error.

This is happening on two Windows 10 machines so it's not an isolated case.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Version	8.0.1
Type	Bug
TypeOfFailure	OtherFailure
Priority	normal
Resolution	Unresolved
Component	Compiler
Test case
Differential revisions
BlockedBy
Related
Blocking
CC
Operating system	Unknown/Multiple
Architecture

mentioned in issue #9010 (closed)

changed weight to 5

added Tbug Trac import labels

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Component	Compiler → Runtime System (Linker)
Operating system	Unknown/Multiple → Windows

changed milestone to %8.2.1

assigned to @Phyx

Thanks for the report.

It seems we don't quite deal correctly with symbols at the start of a section. We incorrectly think they're undefined because their addresses are 0.

1. 0.2 would alleviate this somewhat as it'll have import library support, so it would like against the DLL in that case.

What I don't quite get is what's causing it to link against anything in the library to begin with..

closed

The error message is a bit unfortunate. The linker is trying to load HScurl-1.3.8-B8AxMCtSRkiFrZLK4gerBe.o and in doing so requires the symbol curl_global_init. This kicks off a whole chain of dependencies ending with it unable to find stricmp which is a deprecated POSIX name on Windows. So it can't find it and reports the entire chain (in a not so intuitive way I admit.).

#12497 (closed) does aliasing of these names so 8.0.2 should fix this. 8.0.2 will also bring import library support which would instead have it link against the DLL. which should be much simpler. However libcurl under msys is not a native package. It's an msys package. So this will still fail because it needs to load and find msys2-runtime and /usr/lib and /usr/bin. Are probably not on your path. But if you add them it should work. (Technically speaking libcurl depends on newlib, but the only newlib package on msys is the msys runtime).

Anyway, you could also try a native curl library such as https://curl.haxx.se/download.html, this doesn't have this dependency. Though it does have others like crypto, ssl etc.

Unfortunately libcurl is one of those very annoying packages on Windows.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Resolution	Unresolved → ResolvedDuplicate
Blocking	- → #12497 (closed)

added compiler crash label

added Pnormal label