Forgetting “-pthread” option may give you a big surprise!

Today, I wrote a small pthread program to do some testing:

#include <pthread.h>

int main(void)
{
        pthread_mutex_t mutex = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;
        pthread_cond_t cv = PTHREAD_COND_INITIALIZER;

        pthread_mutex_lock(&mutex);
        pthread_cond_wait(&cv, &mutex);
        return 0;
} 

Build and test it on OpenBSD-current (version is 6.4):

# cc cv_test.c -o cv_test
# ./cv_test

The program will block there and it is my expected result. Switch to Arch Linux (kernel version is 4.18.9):

# cc cv_test.c -o cv_test
# ./cv_test
#

The program will exit immediately. I doubt it is “spurious awake” firstly, but can’t get a convincing explanation. Using ldd to check program. On OpenBSD:

# ldd cv_test
cv_test:
        Start            End              Type  Open Ref GrpRef Name
        000000d4c3a00000 000000d4c3c02000 exe   1    0   0      cv_test
        000000d6e6007000 000000d6e62f6000 rlib  0    1   0      /usr/lib/libc.so.92.5
        000000d6db100000 000000d6db100000 ld.so 0    1   0      /usr/libexec/ld.so

On Arch Linux:

# ldd cv_test
        linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffde91c6000)
        libc.so.6 => /usr/lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007f3e3169b000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 => /usr/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f3e3187a000)

Nothing special. After seeking help on stackoverflow, the answer is I need adding -pthread option:

# cc -pthread cv_test.c -o cv_test
# ./cv_test

This time it worked perfectly. Checking linked library:

# ldd cv_test
        linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fff48be8000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fa46f84c000)
        libc.so.6 => /usr/lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007fa46f688000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 => /usr/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fa46f888000)

Why doesn’t Linux give me a link error which prompts I need link libpthread? It seems not make sense.