[Techtalk] question re: compiling/installing binutils stripped

[Darlene Wallach]

Almut Behrens wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 28, 2004 at 12:25:56PM -0700, Darlene Wallach wrote:
> 
>>I've been downloading, compiling and installing the software
>>and versions of software required for gcc-3.4.2
>>
>>After installing binutils I started making sure the new
>>versions would be used under /usr/local/bin vs /usr/bin
>>I noticed the new versions were not stripped. I looked
>>at configure and Makefile to look for an option to
>>compile/install stripped. I have not found what I need
>>to tell either configure or make so I get a stripped
>>version.
> 
> 
> It's probably easiest to just call strip on them, i.e. 'strip <binary>'.
> (BTW, never tried what happens if you call strip (being part of the
> binutils) on itself -- so you might want to use the old one for that.)
> 
> If you want to build the tools directly without debugging symbols, you
> should make sure that -g is _not_ in the compiler options supplied.
> Most autoconf-generated files use something like CFLAGS or CCFLAGS in
> the makefile.  If you set this variable in the environment before
> starting the configure/make, you can supply your own compiler options. 
> Those typically override the internally determined ones, so make sure
> the original options remain in place (everything except the -g).  For
> this, just run the build once without modifying the options, to see
> what options actually are in effect, then cut-n-paste and modify
> them... (removing the -g in your case).
> (You see why I said it's easiest to use strip ;)
> 
> 
>>Is there a reason I would want the not stripped version
>>if I don't plan on debugging the binutils?
> 
> 
> Normally not. If you really want to debug the tools themselves, you can
> always rebuild them with debugging symbols.  OTOH, it's also not a big
> issue leaving the programs unstripped (except if you're very short of
> storage space) -- there's no noticeable difference in performance (one
> might argue that smaller binaries load faster, but modern OSses can
> handle this quite well...).
> 
> Cheers,
> Almut
> 

Almut,

Thank you for responding so promptly. I was wondering if there
was some option to pass to configure so the Makefile would be
generated to strip the binary. You confirmed what I thought
since I couldn't find any option(s) for configure to disable
debug.

I was ver surprised at the difference in size from the older
versions of the binutils I checked - stripped vs not stripped.

Darlene