[flang-commits] [flang] [clang] [flang][driver] Remove Fortain_main static library from linking stages (PR #75816)

[via flang-commits]

================
@@ -163,6 +163,63 @@ forward compiler options to the frontend driver, `flang-new -fc1`.
 You can read more on the design of `clangDriver` in Clang's [Driver Design &
 Internals](https://clang.llvm.org/docs/DriverInternals.html).
 
+## Linker Driver
+When used as a linker, Flang's frontend driver assembles the command line for an
+external linker command (e.g., LLVM's `lld`) and invokes it to create the final
+executable by linking static and shared libraries together with all the
+translation units supplied as object files.
+
+By default, the Flang linker driver adds several libraries to the linker
+invocation to make sure that all entrypoints for program start
+(Fortran's program unit) and runtime routines can be resolved by the linker.
+
+An abridged example (only showing the Fortran specific linker flags, omission
+indicated by `[...]`) for such a linker invocation on a Linux system would look
+like this:
+
+```
+$ flang -v -o example example.o
+"/usr/bin/ld" [...] example.o [...] "--whole-archive" "-lFortran_main"
+"--no-whole-archive" "-lFortranRuntime" "-lFortranDecimal" [...]
+```
+
+The automatically added libraries are:
+
+* `Fortran_main`: Provides the main entry point `main` that then invokes
+  `_QQmain` with the Fortran program unit.  This library has a dependency to
+  the `FortranRuntime` library.
+* `FortranRuntime`: Provides most of the Flang runtime library.
+* `FortranDecimal`: Provides operations for decimal numbers.
+
+The default is that, when using Flang as the linker, one of the Fortran
+translation units provides the program unit and therefore it is assumed that
+Fortran is the main code part (calling into C/C++ routines via `BIND (C)`
+interfaces).  When composing the linker commandline, Flang uses
+`--whole-archive` and `--no-whole-archive` (Windows: `/WHOLEARCHIVE:`,
+Darwin & AIX: *not implemented yet*) to make sure that all for `Fortran_main`
+is processed by the linker.  This is done to issue a proper error message when
+multiple definitions of `main` occur.  This happens, for instance, when linking
+a code that has a Fortran program unit with a C/C++ code that also defines a
+`main` function.  A user may be required to explicitly provide the C++ runtime
+libraries at link time (e.g., via `-lstdc++` for STL)
+
+If the code is C/C++ based and invokes Fortran routines, one can either use Clang
+or Flang as the linker driver.  If Clang is used, it will automatically all
+required runtime libraries needed by C++ (e.g., for STL) to the linker invocation.
+In this case, one has to explicitly provide the Fortran runtime libraries
+`FortranRuntime` and/or `FortranDecimal`.  An alternative is to use Flang to link
+and use the `-fno-fortran-main` flag.  This flag removes
+`Fortran_main` from the linker stage and hence requires one of the C/C++
+translation units to provide a definition of the `main` function. In this case,
+it may be required to explicitly supply C++ runtime libraries as mentioned above.
+
+When creating shared or static libraries using Flang with -shared or -static
----------------
kkwli wrote:

```suggestion
When creating shared or static libraries using Flang with `-shared` or `-static`
```

https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/pull/75816