Is it possible to link bitcode with llvm-ar archieve into a single bitcode file?

Question

I have read this thread on llvm-dev and is faced with the same problem: I cannot link the llvm-ar archieve library with other bitcode files into another single bitcode file with the help of llvm-link.

clang -emit-llvm -g -c -o main.bc main.c
clang -emit-llvm -g -c -o calc.bc calc.c
llvm-ar rcs libcalc.la calc.bc
llvm-link libcalc.la main.bc -o test

the problem is the same: llvm-link complains

llvm-link: libcalc.la:1:2: error: expected integer
!<arch>
 ^

And after reading How to link object to libraries with LLVM >= 3.1 ? ( no GNU ld ), I also tried a llvm2.9 version of llvm-ld.

llvm-ld --disable-opt libcalc.la main.bc -o test

however libcalc.la is not linked into the module correctly and lli reports:

LLVM ERROR: Program used external function 'Square' which could not be resolved!

So what should i do?

UPDATE

I then read Can't link against static library when compiling objects from LLVM bitcode. and find that llvm-ld WORKS when changing the order:

llvm-ld --disable-opt  main.bc libcalc.la -o test

But llvm-link still fails.

Answer 1

• llvm-link does not support bitcode archives, AFAIK. It simply goes over the input files it was provided, and tries to parse each one as a bitcode file (either binary or textual LLVM IR).
• llvm-ld doesn't exist in the newer LLVMs, so I would suggest to stay away from it completely.

Just link the separate .bc files together with llvm-link. The archiving of bitcode files doesn't have the same benefits for the linker as in native linking anyway.