relative value of stripping symbols

[Paul Hudson]

In article <17615 at cisunx.UUCP>, jcbst3 at cisunx.UUCP (James C. Benz) writes:
> Just a little question of some interest.  Suppose I have a C program that
> when compiled with the -g option (debugging symbols left in) (this is ATT
> Unix Sys V).  Does leaving these symbols in the file affect program 
> performance?  Signifigantly?  Reason for asking, I have an application
 ....


With "normal" Unix C compilers, -g implies no optimisation. This of
course will make your code run slower (usuallly!) than optimised code.
It's quite difficult to debug code that has been optimised a lot,
although often enough information can be obtained. GNU gcc allows
-O and -g to be combined, and thus (except for disk space) there's
never any reason to not use -g.

Paul Hudson 

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