Re: Differences between gnat 4.4.5 and 4.5.1

[Mart van de Wege <mvdwege@mail.com>]

Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:

> Mart van de Wege writes:
>> Julian Leyh <julian@vgai.de> writes:
>>
>>> On 10 Mrz., 07:01, Noel Duffy <hobcraft-use...@yahooxtra.co.nz> wrote:
>>>> I wonder whether what I am seeing is a result of a difference in gcc-gnat
>>>> version, a difference in distribution packaging, or possibly a
>>>> combination of both. Is there anyone using Fedora here who could possibly
>>>> shed any light on this?
>>>
>>> What do "file" and "ldd" tell you about them? Are the sizes more
>>> similar if you "strip" them?
>>
>> I'd be inclined to think stripping may be the culprit. Debian is well
>> known to use stripped binaries by default, so I wouldn't be surprised
>> if the various toolchains are set up that way as well.
>>
>> IIRC, this is what led them to stop being the default GNU distro, as
>> the GNU folks like their binaries with debug info by default. And
>> since Fedora is mostly a Red Hat project, and Red Hat has absorbed a
>> *lot* of the GCC devs via Cygnus, I'd expect Fedora to *not* strip by
>> default.
>>
>> Ludovic could probably answer that one in his sleep.
>
> No, not in my sleep :)
>
> Stripping means removing debugging symbols from an executable.  For the
> debugging symbols to be present in the first place requires an explicit
> -g option.
>
> The "default" you speak of is that contained in most upstream Makefiles.
> Debian *packaging scripts*, by default, passes -g to the compiler and
> then strips the executables, moving the debugging symbols to a separate
> -dbg package (this is in fact mandatory for the Ada libraries...).  But
> packaging scripts have nothing to do with the OP's way of calling GCC.
>
Thanks. That is clear. I was working from vague recollection about the
Debian/GNU split.

For work and hobby, I just use the tools provided, not worrying overmuch
about such details. And I have a distribution maintainer who does a lot
of work to keep me from worrying.

For which I say: Thanks Ludo.

Mart

-- 
"We will need a longer wall when the revolution comes."
    --- AJS, quoting an uncertain source.