Why strip binaries?

rsamurti · 06-26-2004, 10:29 PM

Hello:

Please pardon me for my ignorance. What is the meaing of stripping of ELF binaries. While creating a Slackware package, why should this be done? Can any body direct me to the correct information?

Thanks for your help.

Anand

slakmagik · 06-27-2004, 12:18 AM

Stripping removes debugging symbols and such junk. It makes them smaller, faster, and require less memory. However, if they crash, you can't really figure out why. If you're a developer and need to debug your stuff, you wouldn't want to strip. If you're just a user who wouldn't debug something or even know how, might as well strip.

You can strip libs, too, but this sometimes has more negative effects. Not sure of the details there. A guru can maybe clarify or correct me if I'm altogether mistaken but this is my understanding.

rsamurti · 06-27-2004, 07:28 AM

Thanks for the reply. But how to strip binaries?

Anand

tobyl · 06-27-2004, 07:51 AM

Are you using checkinstall? This will strip the binary files for you
the option is in
/etc/checkinstall/checkinstallrc

else read 'man strip'

tobyl

thegeekster · 06-27-2004, 04:17 PM

Here's the Slack way of stripping binaries, both executables and libs ("shared object")......................

Code:

  find . | xargs file | grep "executable" | grep ELF | cut -f 1 -d : | xargs strip --strip-unneeded 2> /dev/null
  find . | xargs file | grep "shared object" | grep ELF | cut -f 1 -d : | xargs strip --strip-unneeded 2> /dev/null

NOTE: First 'cd' to the top=level directory where you want to strip the files............These are the commands used in Patrick's SlackBuild scripts found in the source trees of the Slack mirrors.................