How to generate gcc debug symbol outside the build target?

Question

I know I can generate debug symbol using -g option. However the symbol is embeded in the target file. Could gcc generate debug symbol outside the result executable/library? Like .pdb file of windows VC++ compiler did.

Answer 1

You need to use objcopy to separate the debug information:

objcopy --only-keep-debug "${tostripfile}" "${debugdir}/${debugfile}"
strip --strip-debug --strip-unneeded "${tostripfile}"
objcopy --add-gnu-debuglink="${debugdir}/${debugfile}" "${tostripfile}"

I use the bash script below to separate the debug information into files with a .debug extension in a .debug directory. This way I can tar the libraries and executables in one tar file and the .debug directories in another. If I want to add the debug info later on I simply extract the debug tar file and voila I have symbolic debug information.

This is the bash script:

#!/bin/bash

scriptdir=`dirname ${0}`
scriptdir=`(cd ${scriptdir}; pwd)`
scriptname=`basename ${0}`

set -e

function errorexit()
{
  errorcode=${1}
  shift
  echo $@
  exit ${errorcode}
}

function usage()
{
  echo "USAGE ${scriptname} <tostrip>"
}

tostripdir=`dirname "$1"`
tostripfile=`basename "$1"`


if [ -z ${tostripfile} ] ; then
  usage
  errorexit 0 "tostrip must be specified"
fi

cd "${tostripdir}"

debugdir=.debug
debugfile="${tostripfile}.debug"

if [ ! -d "${debugdir}" ] ; then
  echo "creating dir ${tostripdir}/${debugdir}"
  mkdir -p "${debugdir}"
fi
echo "stripping ${tostripfile}, putting debug info into ${debugfile}"
objcopy --only-keep-debug "${tostripfile}" "${debugdir}/${debugfile}"
strip --strip-debug --strip-unneeded "${tostripfile}"
objcopy --add-gnu-debuglink="${debugdir}/${debugfile}" "${tostripfile}"
chmod -x "${debugdir}/${debugfile}"

Answer 2

Check out the "--only-keep-debug" option of the strip command.

From the link:

The intention is that this option will be used in conjunction with --add-gnu-debuglink to create a two part executable. One a stripped binary which will occupy less space in RAM and in a distribution and the second a debugging information file which is only needed if debugging abilities are required.

Answer 3

GNU nm utility can be used to generate the symbol file from the object file/executable. See the man page for various options available.