Re: stripping binaries

[Raja R Harinath <harinath cs umn edu>]

Brian M Dial <bdial@rkkengineers.com> writes:
> 	Could someone give me a quick rundown on when it is or isn't good to
> strip libraries?  

It is not a good idea to strip libraries.  If you need to strip them,
strip _only_ the debugging symbols.

> I'm making packages and after stripping ORBit libraries I can't
> compile gnome-libs because I get undefined references to
> `impl_CosNaming_NamingContext__create' .  However, if I leave the
> libraries unstripped they compile fine (but are just incredibly
> large.  I tried the --strip-unneeded option with strip but it still
> happened.  

Don't use --strip-unneeded on libraries.  (Simplistic explanation
alert) Libraries don't have entry points, so most of it is "unneeded"
as far as strip is concerned.  Use only

        strip -g

or

        strip --strip-debug

on libraries.  That should be enough to make them small.

> Now what I think is that I could strip them after compiling
> everything but will that then cause some of the stuff not to work
> when installed by the stripped packages?

If you take care only to strip debugging symbols, there should be no
problem.  However, debugging will be more painful.

- Hari
-- 
Raja R Harinath ------------------------------ harinath@cs.umn.edu
"When all else fails, read the instructions."      -- Cahn's Axiom
"Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing."   -- Roy L Ash