| 1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
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| 3 | "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
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| 4 | <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../../general.ent">
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| 5 | %general-entities;
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| 6 | ]>
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| 7 |
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| 8 | <sect1 id="ch-system-aboutdebug">
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| 9 | <?dbhtml filename="aboutdebug.html"?>
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| 10 |
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| 11 | <title>About Debugging Symbols</title>
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| 12 |
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| 13 | <para os="a">Most programs and libraries are, by default, compiled with debugging
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| 14 | symbols included (with <command>gcc</command>'s <option>-g</option> option).
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| 15 | This means that when debugging a program or library that was compiled with
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| 16 | debugging information included, the debugger can provide not only memory
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| 17 | addresses, but also the names of the routines and variables.</para>
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| 18 |
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| 19 | <para os="b">However, the inclusion of these debugging symbols enlarges a
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| 20 | program or library significantly. The following is an example of the
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| 21 | amount of space these symbols occupy:</para>
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| 22 |
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| 23 | <itemizedlist os="c">
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| 24 | <listitem os="c1">
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| 25 | <para>a bash binary with debugging symbols: 1200 KB</para>
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| 26 | </listitem>
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| 27 | <listitem os="c2">
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| 28 | <para>a bash binary without debugging symbols: 480 KB</para>
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| 29 | </listitem>
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| 30 | <listitem os="c3">
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| 31 | <para>Glibc and GCC files (<filename class="directory">/lib</filename>
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| 32 | and <filename class="directory">/usr/lib</filename>) with debugging
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| 33 | symbols: 87 MB</para>
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| 34 | </listitem>
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| 35 | <listitem os="c4">
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| 36 | <para>Glibc and GCC files without debugging symbols: 16 MB</para>
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| 37 | </listitem>
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| 38 | </itemizedlist>
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| 39 |
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| 40 | <para os="d">Sizes may vary depending on which compiler and C library were used,
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| 41 | but when comparing programs with and without debugging symbols, the
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| 42 | difference will usually be a factor between two and five.</para>
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| 43 |
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| 44 | <para os="e">Because most users will never use a debugger on their system software,
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| 45 | a lot of disk space can be regained by removing these symbols. The next
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| 46 | section shows how to strip all debugging symbols from the programs and
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| 47 | libraries.</para>
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| 48 |
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| 49 | </sect1>
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