Solidity syntax errors produce an unexpected `abort` and print two 5's to the console

If the code sent to solc-js contains a syntax error, solc-js will throw an error with the message abort(5). It also prints two 5’s to the console. This affects the Truffle stack as all users who accidentally produce syntax errors won’t be able to diagnose the issue.

I’ve written a sample script that reproduces the error:

#!/usr/bin/env node
var solc = require("solc");

var solcStandardInput = {
  language: "Solidity",
  sources: {
    "Contract.sol": {content: "pragma solidity ^0.4.11; contract Contract { this is a syntax error }"}
  },
  settings: {
    optimizer: {
      enabled: true,
      runs: 0 // See https://github.com/ethereum/solidity/issues/2245
    },
  }
};

// This error's and prints out two 5's
solc.compileStandardWrapper(JSON.stringify(solcStandardInput));

The output you get looks like this:

[JohnAllen]

This can happen when you declare struct members public:

struct Restaurant { bool public open; }

Also compiling files individually (if doing Truffle migrate which is how I got here) can actually throw a usable error message: solcjs file.sol --abi

[axic]

It definitely works with 0.4.13:

$ ./solcjs --version
0.4.13+commit.0fb4cb1a.Emscripten.clang
$ ./solcjs --standard-json <_113.json 
{"contracts":{},"errors":[{"component":"general","formattedMessage":"Contract.sol:1:51: ParserError: Expected identifier, got 'Is'\npragma solidity ^0.4.11; contract Contract { this is a syntax error }\n                                                  ^\n","message":"Expected identifier, got 'Is'","severity":"error","type":"ParserError"}],"sources":{}}