Re: enable/disable-debug options to libstdc++-v3

[Phil Edwards <phil at jaj dot com>]

On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 10:09:59AM +0530, Ranjit Mathew wrote:
> Yes, I'm positive that it is the debug information - on MinGW
> at least, the generated libstdc++-v3 is 14MB(!) with debug
> info and just 800K without - on my personal GCC build environment,

Okay, good, just wanted to check.


> In fact, Danny Smith, the primary MinGW GCC/binutils maintainer
> remarked in a post to the mingw-users list (where I'd raised
> this issue) that he himself just uses "strip -g" on the library
> before packaging it for distribution.

Stripping the lib is what we've been recommending to those who have asked,
and probably what we'll continue to recommend.  We can't automate it,
of course, because a) some people like the debug info, and b) the
invocation/options to 'strip' are too variable.


> The difference in size might not impact run time performance
> but it takes quite a bit of unnecessary disk space and has just
> that little bit of impact at link time (IMHO).

Understandable.


> Besides, as I remarked earlier, it is rather weird to say
> that "--disable-debug" would put in a lot of debug
> info anyways.

Now, that is something we might want to tweak, if we start installing a
(second) library specifically for debugging.  Perhaps the non-debuggable
one should still use -g1?  Lots of possibilities here, none of which I'll
have time to play with for another five-and-a-half weeks.  :-)


Phil

-- 
I would therefore like to posit that computing's central challenge, viz. "How
not to make a mess of it," has /not/ been met.
                                                 - Edsger Dijkstra, 1930-2002