Gnucobol compiles .cob to .c failed to pass compiler of clang - clang

Question

I was trying to compile hello.cob to hello.c:
$ ls
hello.cob
$ cobc -x -C hello.cob
$ ls
hello.c hello.c.h hello.c.l.h hello.cob
But clang failed to compile hello.c to executable file:
$ clang hello.c
/tmp/hello-479acf.o: In function `main':
hello.c:(.text+0x1e): undefined reference to `cob_init'
hello.c:(.text+0x2a): undefined reference to `cob_stop_run'
/tmp/hello-479acf.o: In function `sampleCOBOL_':
hello.c:(.text+0x98): undefined reference to `cob_module_global_enter'
hello.c:(.text+0x133): undefined reference to `cob_display'
hello.c:(.text+0x13f): undefined reference to `cob_stop_run'
hello.c:(.text+0x15a): undefined reference to `cob_check_version'
hello.c:(.text+0x33d): undefined reference to `cob_set_cancel'
hello.c:(.text+0x38e): undefined reference to `cob_fatal_error'
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)
Here is hello.cob (can be compiled by cobc -x hello.cob):
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. sampleCOBOL.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DISPLAY "Hello World!".
STOP RUN.

Answer 1

I'm quite sure clang doesn't fail to compile the C source as you don't ave any C compiler warnings or errors.
It cannot link the generated object file because you didn't told clang to link against libcob and there is no "magic" for clang to know where to find its symbols. Adding -lcob to your clang invocation may be enough already.
If you want to know how cobc invokes the compiler/linker add -v to your cobc invocation.
Note: if this version of cobc was built with gcc it defaults to use gcc, too. You can see this with cobc --info which also shows if any of the built-in commands is override by environment variables.
Additional note: cobc does not only call a C compiler/linker, it also generates C code specific for the compiler it was built with. The most important part concerning the C generation is -f[no-]computed-goto, just in case the C compiler complains (which it doesn't in your case).