Re: What is "stripping" in binary compilations ?
On Sun, Apr 23, 2006 at 01:25:20AM +0200, Maxim Vexler wrote:
> Hello everyone.
>
> I'm reading the "New maintainer's guide".
>
> On page 28 (version 1.2.3,18 January2005) the author speaks about
> `stripping' executable and the dh_strip(1) script. Surprisingly, no
> where was the reader informed about the purpose of `striping'. Am I
> supposed to know this as part of "basic knowledge" ?
:)
> If so where can I learn more about stripping I've tried to search
> the Debian developers reference guide and the gcc online
> documentations, as well as google but no useful information has
> turned up.
See man 1 strip, install -s, and dh_strip.
> Is stripping important when packaging an application for debian ?
It can reduce the size by a considerable amount, so Debian ELF objects
are typically stripped of everything they don't need for normal
runtime, including "comment" sections and debugging symbols (which are
sometimes put into
> How can I tell if an application was meant to be stripped by upstream ?
If it is in any way "normal", you can just strip it, and it will just
work. There are some strange ones that keep can't be stripped,
because they keep critical information in some "comment" section or
such.
Debian makes this pretty trivial; the default dh_make output calls
dh_strip at the appropriate time, and dh_strip even knows to do
nothing if DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=~nostrip, which allows testers/debuggers
to trivially recompile the .debs *with* debugging information
included, which would normally have been removed.
Justin
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