`illegal option -- D` when linking in macOS

Description of the bug:

Any cc_library with a non-empty srcs fails to link when using a custom toolchain.

What’s the simplest, easiest way to reproduce this bug? Please provide a minimal example if possible.

A minimal repro is here: https://github.com/asoffer/bazel_macos_repro

Which operating system are you running Bazel on?

macOS Monterey 12.4

What is the output of bazel info release?

release 5.2.0

If bazel info release returns development version or (@non-git), tell us how you built Bazel.

No response

What’s the output of git remote get-url origin; git rev-parse master; git rev-parse HEAD ?

No response

Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?

The D flag is valid on unix systems but not macOS. This has shown up on some other builds (python-related) but nothing C++ related that I’ve found.

Any other information, logs, or outputs that you want to share?

No response

[asoffer]

Both the workaround and the direct fix work. Thank you. I’m not sure what the correct action is moving forward… I suspect it would be valuable to document that an unknown target-libc does not work for macOS builds. But I’m not sure where the best place would be for this.

[keith]

The quickest workaround would be to add the archiver_flags feature to your custom toolchain so you avoid the default one:

    archiver_flags_feature = feature(
        name = "archiver_flags",
        flag_sets = [
            flag_set(
                actions = [ACTION_NAMES.cpp_link_static_library],
                flag_groups = [
                    flag_group(flags = ["rcs"]),
                    flag_group(
                        flags = ["%{output_execpath}"],
                        expand_if_available = "output_execpath",
                    ),
                ],
            ),
            flag_set(
                actions = [ACTION_NAMES.cpp_link_static_library],
                flag_groups = [
                    flag_group(
                        iterate_over = "libraries_to_link",
                        flag_groups = [
                            flag_group(
                                flags = ["%{libraries_to_link.name}"],
                                expand_if_equal = variable_with_value(
                                    name = "libraries_to_link.type",
                                    value = "object_file",
                                ),
                            ),
                            flag_group(
                                flags = ["%{libraries_to_link.object_files}"],
                                iterate_over = "libraries_to_link.object_files",
                                expand_if_equal = variable_with_value(
                                    name = "libraries_to_link.type",
                                    value = "object_file_group",
                                ),
                            ),
                        ],
                        expand_if_available = "libraries_to_link",
                    ),
                ],
            ),
        ],
    )