| 1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE section [
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| 3 | <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
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| 4 | %general-entities;
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| 5 | ]>
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| 6 | <section xmlns="http://docbook.org/docbook-ng"
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| 7 | xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
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| 8 | xml:id="ch-system-aboutdebug">
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| 9 | <title>About debugging symbols</title>
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| 10 | <?dbhtml filename="aboutdebug.html"?>
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| 11 |
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| 12 | <para>Most programs and libraries are, by default, compiled with debugging
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| 13 | symbols included (with <command>gcc</command>'s <parameter>-g</parameter>
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| 14 | option). This means that, when debugging a program or library that was compiled
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| 15 | with debugging information included, the debugger can give you not only memory
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| 16 | addresses but also the names of the routines and variables.</para>
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| 17 |
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| 18 | <para>The inclusion of these debugging symbols, however, enlarges a program or
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| 19 | library significantly. To get an idea of the amount of space these symbols
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| 20 | occupy, have a look at the following:</para>
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| 21 |
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| 22 | <itemizedlist>
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| 23 |
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| 24 | <listitem><para>a bash binary
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| 25 | with debugging symbols: 1200 KB</para></listitem>
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| 26 |
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| 27 | <listitem><para>a bash binary
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| 28 | without debugging symbols: 480 KB</para></listitem>
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| 29 |
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| 30 | <listitem><para>Glibc and GCC files (<filename class="directory">/lib</filename>
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| 31 | and <filename class="directory">/usr/lib</filename>)
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| 32 | with debugging symbols: 87 MB</para></listitem>
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| 33 |
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| 34 | <listitem><para>Glibc and GCC files
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| 35 | without debugging symbols: 16 MB</para></listitem>
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| 36 |
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| 37 | </itemizedlist>
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| 38 |
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| 39 | <para>Sizes may vary somewhat, depending on which compiler was used and which C
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| 40 | library, but when comparing programs with and without debugging symbols the
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| 41 | difference will generally be a factor between 2 and 5.</para>
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| 42 |
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| 43 | <para>As most people will probably never use a debugger on their system
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| 44 | software, a lot of disk space can be regained by removing these symbols. For
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| 45 | your convenience, the next section shows how to strip all debugging symbols
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| 46 | from all programs and libraries. Information on other ways of optimizing your
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| 47 | system can be found in the hint at <link xlink:href="&hints-root;optimization.txt"/>.</para>
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| 48 |
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| 49 | </section>
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