Hello Lazarus-List,

I'm used to use a:

strip program.exe --strip-all

Before releasing an exe, as it is quite easy operation, but since a few weeks (maybe some months) strip can not remove all "extra" information in the exe file.

I have activated the -g and -gl flags to generate debug information in the exe file, and this is how the exe sections appear:

Which is more or less the expected, except that I do not know what are the /4, /16, /30 and /42 sections. The exe size is around 18 MB.

If I run the strip-all command I get:

And sections starting with "/" are not being removed and the exe size is around 7 MB.

Now unchecking the -g and -gl flags I get:

Which is the expected result and exe size around 1.7 MB.

I had tried to issue a:

strip program.exe --remove-section=/4 without success. Does this means that the strip is not usable anymore or that sections should not be there or have different flags ?

I'm using fpc SVN, Lazarus SVN and WinXP SP3.

Thank you.

2010/2/15 JoshyFun :

The /XXX section names are used (by Windows only I think) if a section name is too long (it's an index to a list of long section names). My objdump translates them to proper names (I have also /4, /16, etc. in the binary file). I have binutils from MinGW project.

# objdump -v

GNU objdump (GNU Binutils) 2.20
Copyright 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

# objdump -h file.exe

Sections:
Idx Name Size VMA LMA File off Algn 0 .text 00333e10 00401000 00401000 00000400 2**4 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, CODE
1 .data 0014a0c8 00735000 00735000 00334400 2**4 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA
2 .bss 0000bde4 00880000 00880000 00000000 2**4 ALLOC
3 .idata 0000380c 0088c000 0088c000 0047e600 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA
4 .rsrc 0000a3dc 00890000 00890000 00482000 2**4 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA
5 .debug_info 01051dcf 0089b000 0089b000 0048c400 2**0 CONTENTS, READONLY, DEBUGGING
6 .debug_abbrev 00cb753d 018ed000 018ed000 014de200 2**0 CONTENTS, READONLY, DEBUGGING
7 .debug_line 00035cc9 025a5000 025a5000 02195800 2**0 CONTENTS, READONLY, DEBUGGING
8 .debug_frame 0001fb1c 025db000 025db000 021cb600 2**2 CONTENTS, READONLY, DEBUGGING
9 .stab 003f34b0 025fb000 025fb000 021eb200 2**2 CONTENTS, READONLY, DEBUGGING
10 .stabstr 010112ea 029ef000 029ef000 025de800 2**0 CONTENTS, READONLY, DEBUGGING

# strip file.exe
# objdump -h file.exe

Sections:
Idx Name Size VMA LMA File off Algn 0 .text 00333e10 00401000 00401000 00000400 2**4 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, CODE
1 .data 0014a0c8 00735000 00735000 00334400 2**4 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA
2 .bss 0000bde4 00880000 00880000 00000000 2**4 ALLOC
3 .idata 0000380c 0088c000 0088c000 0047e600 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA
4 .rsrc 0000a3dc 00890000 00890000 00482000 2**4 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA

Using FPC 2.5.1 rev. 14833.

I don't know which binutils you have, but maybe you should update?

16.02.2010 3:03, JoshyFun ?????:

I'd suggest to use -Xg option. You will have no debug symbols in the executable but have them in a separate file for gdb only. This way you can just take your exe for releasing.

I must admit that strip indeed does not work for my executables with dwarf debug info.

Best regards,
Paul Ishenin.

Hello Lazarus-List,

Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 3:30:08 AM, you wrote:

c> The /XXX section names are used (by Windows only I think) if a section c> name is too long (it's an index to a list of long section names). My

Oh! that's the trick! they are not real names! So using:

strip program.exe --remove-section=.debug_info --remove-section=.debug_abbrev --remove-section=.debug_line --remove-section=.debug_frame

Solves my problem. Thank you!

c> objdump translates them to proper names (I have also /4, /16, etc. in c> the binary file). I have binutils from MinGW project.

I'm using the quite old tdump.exe :) I think its time to create an alias to objdump.exe instead :)

c> Using FPC 2.5.1 rev. 14833.
c> I don't know which binutils you have, but maybe you should update?

GNU strip 2.9.5
Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

The one that comes with fpc 2.2.4 but I had tested a recent one for 64 bits and I think the problem is the same but I'm not sure 100% so I must recheck.

Thank you for the help.

Hello Lazarus-List,

you wrote

> Before releasing an exe, as it is quite easy operation, but since a > few weeks (maybe some months) strip can not remove all "extra" > information in the exe file.

PI> I'd suggest to use -Xg option. You will have no debug symbols in the PI> executable but have them in a separate file for gdb only. This way you PI> can just take your exe for releasing.

Maybe it's time to do so. I was not using it because it does not work around one year in the past, but now it seems to work.

PI> I must admit that strip indeed does not work for my executables with PI> dwarf debug info.

Try this:

strip program.exe --remove-section=.debug_info --remove-section=.debug_abbrev --remove-section=.debug_line --remove-section=.debug_frame

I can not test now as I come back to stabs because linking time in dwarf is more than double time than stabs and in large executables it is very notizable when you are using "test-error" debug technique :)