C++ AddressSanitizer with CMakeLists.txt results in asan errors

Question

Trying to use the AddressSanitizer tool (ASan) on my C++ project, I get a very verbose output full of undefined reference to '__asan_report_store8' and undefined reference to '__asan_report_load8', and others like __asan_stack_malloc_2. My project is built with CMake, and I've added the following line to my CMakeLists.txt:

add_definitions(-fsanitize=address -g3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer)

following these ASan examples:

• Example with makefile
• Jason Turner quick intro video

Running the above makefile example I get the expected pretty output (which can also be seen in the video link). But for my project I'm getting a messy stack trace of those errors.

Notes:

• ubuntu 16.04
• I've set the environment variables ASAN_OPTIONS=symbolize=1 and ASAN_SYMBOLIZER_PATH=/usr/lib/llvm-5.0/bin/llvm-symbolizer in order to print the line numbers in the ASan output

Answer 1

When compiling code to be run with one of the LLVM Sanitizers, you have to pass the -fsanitize=... flag to both the compiler and the linker. With CMake, you can do this by calling target_link_libraries:

target_link_libraries(MyTarget
  -fsanitize=address
)

Alternatively, if you aren't using modern CMake, you can do the same with the link_libraries command