Subj : MSVC users must compile SpiderMonkey with linker flag /OPT:NOICF
To   : netscape.public.mozilla.jseng
From : Phil Schwartau <PhilSchwartau@aol.com>
Date : Tue Nov 18 2003 11:00 am

MSVC users must compile SpiderMonkey with linker flag /OPT:NOICF !!!

This issue has come up for a number of users. After
compiling the optimized JS Engine on Windows with MSVC,
they encounter bogus errors when running JS scripts.
Errors such as "ReferenceError: x is not defined",
where |x| is a variable that HAS been defined. 

The cause of this is "identical COMDAT folding"
done by MSVC during compilation of optimized builds.
It is necessary to turn this off by passing the 
linker flag /OPT:NOICF to MSVC.

Since this issue does come up from time to time,
I have published a page that references it:

http://www.mozilla.org/js/spidermonkey/release-notes/NOICF.html

Here you will see comments from Mozilla developers
as they realized what the problem was, and updated
the build system for Mozilla to take it into account.


Phil

.