[Bug debug/93751] -g1 does not behave per manual

ebotcazou at gcc dot gnu.org gcc-bugzilla@gcc.gnu.org
Sun Feb 16 23:58:00 GMT 2020


https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=93751

--- Comment #6 from Eric Botcazou <ebotcazou at gcc dot gnu.org> ---
> But it turned out that we cannot go to -g1, exactly because we need the
> ability to find the addresses/locations of all exported objects - both
> functions and data.

Do you really need debug information for this?

> First, I am not sure that fixing a manual is a good idea: that would require
> removing generation of such debug info for older formats to align with
> current DWARF behavior ("-g1 makes GCC generate debug info only for
> functions"), which is much likelier to break existing users which depend on
> it.

All the other formats are effectively deprecated at this point I think.

> Also I think most typical executables have fewer exported data objects than
> they do have functions (note that for functions, DIEs are generated even for
> static ones, so the increase in size of the debugging info should be fairly
> negligible. Users concerned about even such minor increases typically strip
> the debug information from the binaries altogether.

People use -g1 precisely because they cannot strip all the debug information,
otherwise they would just use -g0.  And they don't use -g2 because it's bloated
so we must be careful not to do the same for -g1.  To sum up, I think that we
would need some figures before changing a behavior that has been there for 25
years.


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