experimental::filesystem linker error

Question

The Filesystem TS is nothing to do with C++1z support, it is a completely separate specification not part of the C++1z working draft. GCC's implementation (in GCC 5.3 and later) is even available in C++11 mode.

You just need to link with -lstdc++fs to use it.

(The relevant library, libstdc++fs.a, is a static library, so as with any static library it should come after any objects that depend on it in the linker command.)

Update Nov 2017: as well as the Filesystem TS, GCC 8.x also has an implementation of the C++17 Filesystem library, defined in <filesystem> and in namespace std::filesystem (N.B. no "experimental" in those names) when using -std=gnu++17 or -std=c++17. GCC's C++17 support is not complete or stable yet, and until it's considered ready for prime time use you also need to link to -lstdc++fs for the C++17 Filesystem features.

Update Jan 2019: starting with GCC 9, the C++17 std::filesystem components can be used without -lstdc++fs (but you still need that library for std::experimental::filesystem).

If you are using cmake, add the following line to CMakeLists.txt:

link_libraries(stdc++fs)

So that cmake can link against the corresponding library.

With clang 4.0+, you need to link against libc++experimental.a

Make sure you're building with libc++ (not libstdc++) with the -stdlib=libc++ (as mentioned in the comments)

Here is a demo that might be helpful to someone in the future:

env: el6, gcc/5.5.0

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <experimental/filesystem>

int main()
{
    std::string path = std::experimental::filesystem::current_path();

    std::cout << "path = " << path << std::endl;
}

The following are compiling and testing. The flags are -std=c++17 -lstdc++fs:

$ g++ -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=g++
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/apps/gcc-5.5.0/bin/../libexec/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/5.5.0/lto-wrapper
Target: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
Configured with: ../configure --prefix=/apps/gcc-5.5.0 --disable-multilib --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-languages=all
Thread model: posix
gcc version 5.5.0 (GCC)

$ ls -lrt /apps/gcc-5.5.0/lib64 | grep libstdc
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  11272436 Jun 25 10:51 libstdc++.so.6.0.21
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root      2419 Jun 25 10:51 libstdc++.so.6.0.21-gdb.py
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root       976 Jun 25 10:51 libstdc++.la
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  11272436 Jun 25 10:51 libstdc++.so
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  10581732 Jun 25 10:51 libstdc++fs.a
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  28985412 Jun 25 10:51 libstdc++.a
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root       916 Jun 25 10:51 libstdc++fs.la
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  11272436 Jun 25 10:51 libstdc++.so.6

$ g++ filesystem-testing.cpp -lstdc++fs -std=c++17
$ ./a.out

$ g++ -std=c++17 filesystem-testing.cpp -lstdc++fs
$ ./a.out
path = /home/userid/projects-c++/filesystem-testing

It also works with flags: -std=c++11

$ g++ -std=c++11 filesystem-testing.cpp -lstdc++fs
$ ./a.out
path = /home/userid/projects-c++/filesystem-testing

The follows had compiling error _ZNSt12experimental10filesystem2v112current_pathB5cxx11Ev

$ g++ -std=c++17 -lstdc++fs filesystem-testing.cpp
/tmp/ccA6Q9oF.o: In function `main':
filesystem-testing.cpp:(.text+0x11): undefined reference to `_ZNSt12experimental10filesystem2v112current_pathB5cxx11Ev'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

Extra Notes:

The following link might be helpful

How to install gcc8 using devtoolset-8-gcc