| 1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.3//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.3/docbookx.dtd" [
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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 | <sect1 id="ch-system-aboutdebug">
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| 7 | <title>About debugging symbols</title>
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| 8 | <?dbhtml filename="aboutdebug.html"?>
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| 9 |
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| 10 | <para>Most programs and libraries are, by default, compiled with debugging
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| 11 | symbols included (with <command>gcc</command>'s <parameter>-g</parameter>
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| 12 | option). This means that, when debugging a program or library that was compiled
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| 13 | with debugging information included, the debugger can give you not only memory
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| 14 | addresses but also the names of the routines and variables.</para>
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| 15 |
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| 16 | <para>The inclusion of these debugging symbols, however, enlarges a program or
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| 17 | library significantly. To get an idea of the amount of space these symbols
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| 18 | occupy, have a look at the following:</para>
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| 19 |
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| 20 | <itemizedlist>
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| 21 |
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| 22 | <listitem><para>a bash binary
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| 23 | with debugging symbols: 1200 KB</para></listitem>
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| 24 |
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| 25 | <listitem><para>a bash binary
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| 26 | without debugging symbols: 480 KB</para></listitem>
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| 27 |
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| 28 | <listitem><para>Glibc and GCC files (<filename class="directory">/lib</filename>
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| 29 | and <filename class="directory">/usr/lib</filename>)
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| 30 | with debugging symbols: 87 MB</para></listitem>
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| 31 |
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| 32 | <listitem><para>Glibc and GCC files
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| 33 | without debugging symbols: 16 MB</para></listitem>
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| 34 |
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| 35 | </itemizedlist>
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| 36 |
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| 37 | <para>Sizes may vary somewhat, depending on which compiler was used and which C
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| 38 | library, but when comparing programs with and without debugging symbols the
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| 39 | difference will generally be a factor between 2 and 5.</para>
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| 40 |
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| 41 | <para>As most people will probably never use a debugger on their system
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| 42 | software, a lot of disk space can be regained by removing these symbols. For
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| 43 | your convenience, the next section shows how to strip all debugging symbols
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| 44 | from all programs and libraries. Information on other ways of optimizing your
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| 45 | system can be found in the hint at <ulink url="&hints-root;optimization.txt"/>.</para>
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| 46 |
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| 47 | </sect1>
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