Re: Which editor for C/C++ programming, and more...

[Elliot Lee <sopwith redhat com>]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2000, Dave Reed wrote:

> > It can be useful when you want to distribute binarys, but doesn't
> > (under linux anyway) affect the amount of RAM that your executable
> > takes up because the debugging symbols _aren't_loaded_into_RAM_ to
> > begin with. This may vary from OS to OS. 
> 
> 
> Interesting, I didn't know that.  So only when you're using the
> debugger are the symbols loaded?

Or rather, "the debugger is the only program that makes an effort to load
the symbol information".

> > The only real use for strip these days IMO is when you have to
> > distribute something in binary format where it has to be as small as
> > possible (say, over a per-minute charge net-connection) or when you're 
> > comparing compilers (in which case the only fair comparision is to use 
> > the same code in each one, at maximum optimisation and no debugging
> > information, and then strip the binaries before comparing for size etc).

If you are comparing size, you should probably just use the 'size' command
to get a better measurement.

-- Elliot
Red Hat, a Red Hat company