Solidity compiler doesn't work in the Javascript Console

Question

I'm using Geth 1.4.5-stable along with Solc version 0.3.5-0 both on Linux. It is run on a Digital Ocean server. I have a fully synced testnet chain and I'm trying to compile contracts from within the Javascript console.

Steps I've taken:

A. I added Solidity to PATH with export PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin/solc

B. I connected to the console in an another shell window with the following command:

geth --rpc --rpcaddr localhost --rpcapi "eth,net,web3,admin" \
  --solc /usr/bin/solc attach ipc:/home/physes/.ethereum/testnet/geth.ipc

This seems to work fine, and I can use other RPI API commands.

C. I was testing out a Greeter contract.

i)

var greeterSource = 'contract mortal { address owner; function mortal() { owner = msg.sender; } function kill() { if (msg.sender == owner) suicide(owner); } } contract greeter is mortal { string greeting; function greeter(string _greeting) public { greeting = _greeting; } function greet() constant returns (string) { return greeting; } }'

ii)

var greeterCompiled = web3.eth.compile.solidity(greeterSource)

At this point it fails, and I get:

solc: exit status 1
Unknown exception during compilation.
at web3.js:3119:20
at web3.js:6023:15
at web3.js:4995:36
at <anonymous>:1:23

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

This is a bug in the Solidity compiler.

Here is a quick test:

user@Kumquat:~$ echo '' | solc
Unknown exception during compilation.

See eth.compile.solidity fails with solc version 0.3.5 #2703, which links to Exception on compilation from stdin #651.

And the issue Fix crash for input from stdin. #652 has been fixed, but will take an unknown (hopefully short) amount of time to make it into the repository packages.

This is the code change for the fix - Fix crash for input from stdin. #652 - Files changed.

You can try installing the previous version of solc.

Or one workaround offered in the first link above:

For anyone who wants a temporary workaround, you can clone this repo: https://github.com/mattdf/solidity-static and do a build in docker, then copy the solc file to your install. It makes a statically compiled build of solc so it should work on most distros.

Update 10/07/2016

I have installed the latest version of solc and it is now working correctly:

user@Kumquat:~$ solc --version
solc, the solidity compiler commandline interface
Version: 0.3.5-0/RelWithDebInfo-Linux/g++/Interpreter

And testing for the exception in the previous version:

user@Kumquat:~$ echo '' | solc
user@Kumquat:~$