source: final-system/common/aboutdebug.xml@ cc07a72

Last change on this file since cc07a72 was f6bcc50, checked in by Jim Gifford <clfs@…>, 19 years ago

r803@server (orig r801): jim | 2005-12-02 08:36:39 -0800

r880@server: jim | 2005-12-02 08:36:09 -0800
Text Updates from G. Moko


  • Property mode set to 100644
File size: 2.1 KB
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1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
2<!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN"
3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd" [
4 <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../../general.ent">
5 %general-entities;
6]>
7
8<sect1 id="ch-system-aboutdebug">
9 <?dbhtml filename="aboutdebug.html"?>
10
11 <title>About Debugging Symbols</title>
12
13 <para os="a">Most programs and libraries are, by default, compiled with debugging
14 symbols included (with <command>gcc</command>'s <option>-g</option> option).
15 This means that when debugging a program or library that was compiled with
16 debugging information included, the debugger can provide not only memory
17 addresses, but also the names of the routines and variables.</para>
18
19 <para os="b">However, the inclusion of these debugging symbols enlarges a
20 program or library significantly. The following is an example of the
21 amount of space these symbols occupy:</para>
22
23 <itemizedlist os="c">
24 <listitem os="c1">
25 <para>a bash binary with debugging symbols: 1200 KB</para>
26 </listitem>
27 <listitem os="c2">
28 <para>a bash binary without debugging symbols: 480 KB</para>
29 </listitem>
30 <listitem os="c3">
31 <para>Glibc and GCC files (<filename class="directory">/lib</filename>
32 and <filename class="directory">/usr/lib</filename>) with debugging
33 symbols: 87 MB</para>
34 </listitem>
35 <listitem os="c4">
36 <para>Glibc and GCC files without debugging symbols: 16 MB</para>
37 </listitem>
38 </itemizedlist>
39
40 <para os="d">Sizes may vary depending on which compiler and C library were used,
41 but when comparing programs with and without debugging symbols, the
42 difference will usually be a factor between two and five.</para>
43
44 <para os="e">Because most users will never use a debugger on their system software,
45 a lot of disk space can be regained by removing these symbols. The next
46 section shows how to strip all debugging symbols from the programs and
47 libraries. Additional information on system optimization can be found at
48 <ulink url="&hints-root;optimization.txt"/>.</para>
49
50</sect1>
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