How can a segfault happen at runtime only because of linking unused modules? - gcc

Question

I get a segmentation fault from a memory allocation statement just because I have linked some unrelated procedures to the binary.
I have a very simple Fortran program:
program whatsoever
!USE payload_modules
double precision,allocatable:: Vmat(:,:,:)
allocate(Vmat(2,2,2))
Vmat=1
write(*,*) Vmat
deallocate (Vmat)
! some more lines of code using procedures from payload_module
end program whatsoever
Compiling this using gfortran whatsoever.f95 -o whatsoever leads to a program with the expected behaviour. Of course, this program is not made to print eight times 1.000 but to call the payload_modules, yet hidden in the comments. However, if I compile and link the program with the modules issuing
gfortran -c -g -fPIC -ffpe-trap=overflow -pedantic -fbounds-check \
-fimplicit-none payload_module1.f90 payload_module2.f90 whatsever.f95
gcc -g -nostdlib -v -Wl,--verbose -std=gnu99 -shared -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions \
-Wl,-z,relro -o whatsoever whatsoever.o payload_module1.o payload_module2.o
the program whatsoever doesn't run any more. I get a segmentation fault at the allocate statement. I have not yet uncommented the lines related to the modules (however, uncommenting them leads to the same behaviour)!
I know that the payload modules' code is not buggy because I ran it before from R and wrapped this working code into a f90-module. There are no name collisions; nothing in the modules is called Vmat. There is only one other call to allocate in the modules. It never caused any trouble. There is still plenty of memory left. gdb didn't give me any hints expect a memory address.
How can linking routines that are actually not called crash a program?

Answer 1

Compiling your code with
gfortran whatsoever.f95 -o whatsoever
is working because you link against the system libraries, everything is in place. This would correspond to
gfortran whatsoever.f95 payload_module1.f90 payload_module2.f90 -o whatsoever
which would also work. The commands you used instead omit the system libraries, and the code fails at the first time you call a function from there (the allocation). You don't see that you are missing the libraries, because you create a shared object (which is typically linked against the libraries later on).
You chose to separate compiling the objects and linking them into an executable. Doing this for Fortran program using gcc you need to specify the Fortran libraries, so there's a -lgfortran missing.
I'm not sure about that particular choice of compile options... -shared is usually used for libraries, are you sure you want a shared binary (whatever that is)?
With -nostdlib you tell the compiler not to link against the system libraries. You would then need to specify those libraries (which you don't).
For the main program test.F90 and a module payload.F90, I run
gfortran -c -g -fPIC -ffpe-trap=overflow -pedantic -fbounds-check \
-fimplicit-none payload.F90 test.F90
gcc -g -v -Wl,--verbose -std=gnu99 -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions \
-Wl,-z,relro -lgfortran -o whatsoever test.o payload.o
This compiles and executes correctly.
It might be easier to use the advance options with gfortran:
gfortran -g -fPIC -ffpe-trap=overflow -pedantic -fbounds-check \
-fimplicit-none -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro \
payload.F90 test.F90 -o whatsoever
The result is the same.