What does collect2 error ld returned 1 exit status mean

Question

I see the error collect2  error  ld returned 1 exit status very often  For example  I was executing the following snippet of code   void main       char i     printf  ENTER i      scanf   c   amp i      clrscr       switch i        default        printf   nHi   n          break      case 1        printf   n na          break      case 2        printf   nb n          break      case 3        printf   nc          break          and I got this   main c   text 0x33   undefined reference to  clrscr                         collect2  error  ld returned 1 exit status    What does it mean

User · Answer

In your situation you got a reference to the missing symbols. But in some situations, ld will not provide error information.

If you want to expand the information provided by ld, just add the following parameters to your $(LDFLAGS)

-Wl,-V

User · Answer

The ld returned 1 exit status error is the consequence of previous errors  In your example there is an earlier error - undefined reference to  clrscr  - and this is the real one  The exit status error just signals that the linking step in the build process encountered some errors  Normally exit status 0 means success  and exit status   0 means errors   When you build your program  multiple tools may be run as separate steps to create the final executable  In your case one of those tools is ld  which first reports the error it found  clrscr reference missing   and then it returns the exit status  Since the exit status is   0  it means an error and is reported   In many cases tools return as the exit status the number of errors they encountered  So if ld tool finds two errors  its exit status would be 2

User · Answer

Include   include lt stdlib h gt   and use System  cls   instead of clrscr

User · Answer

Try running task manager to determine if your program is still running   If it is running then stop it and run it again  the  Error  ld returned 1 exit status will not come back

User · Answer

clrscr is not standard C function  According to internet  it used to be a thing in old Borland C  Is clrscr    a function in C

[c] What does "collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status" mean?

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