From: "John M. Aldrich" Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: strip.exe or -s Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 08:30:34 +0000 Organization: Two pounds of chaos and a pinch of salt Lines: 40 Message-ID: <335C772A.4973@NO.SPAM.cs.com> References: Reply-To: fighteer AT cs DOT com NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp103.cs.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Precedence: bulk Robert Humphris wrote: > > Now I have used strip for a while now and before we use it here at work > we would like to know what it > does and how it does it! We need to know this type of thing before we > can start releasing code that > has been stripped. > > So does anyone have any information that is pertinent or have some > pointers as to where to look for > this information? Strip, and its counterpart, the '-s' switch to gcc, remove all debugging information from your program's object code. This primarily includes symbol names, but also includes various other data that's used by debuggers. The only thing you lose by stripping a program is the ability to debug it. For this reason, it's generally recommended that you not strip your code unless you're building a release version. There's one other thing about stripping that you should know: it does not affect in any way the linking and operation of your program. A crash traceback from a stripped executable can be used to debug a non-stripped executable, as long as they are both from the same build. The source code for 'strip.exe' is available in the DJGPP library sources (v2/djlsr201.zip). (You know, it just occurred to me that this conversation would probably be blocked by anti-obscenity software for the promiscuous use of the word "strip". ;) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- | John M. Aldrich, aka Fighteer I | mailto:fighteer AT cs DOT com | | God's final message to His Creation: | http://www.cs.com/fighteer | | "We apologize for the inconvenience."| Fight against proprietary | | - Douglas Adams | software - support the FSF!| ---------------------------------------------------------------------