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0010636

CMake

public

2010-04-28 15:57

2016-06-10 14:31

Reporter

Eric Gross

Assigned To

Kitware Robot

Priority

normal

Severity

minor

Reproducibility

always

Status

closed

Resolution

moved

Platform

OS Version

Product Version

CMake-2-8

Target Version

Fixed in Version

Summary

0010636: Visual Studio 'Release' configuration should have usable PDBs generated

Description

I noticed that the 'Release' configuration has the compilation step not produce debug info (/Zi flag). The linker is still configured to produce a PDB but this contains pretty much no information since the compiled code had no debug info generated. This is a problem because any binaries that we produce and ship to customers always needs preserved symbol information for debugging crash dumps from the field or just doing live debugging with the released binaries.

I tried to use the 'ReleaseWithDebugInfo' configuration, but this is a far different configuration than the 'Release' configuration. It is built with incremental linking, inlining options, and unused symbol removal options. It might be useful for some people to debug issues that only appear in optimized code, but the differing compile/link options make these binaries unsuitable for actual release because they are around 50% larger than 'Release' configuration.

Since MSVC has the ability to generate external PDBs for fully-optimized code with no runtime size or performance penalty to the resulting binaries, it seems silly that there is no configuration that lets you do this. I think the default 'Release' configuration should always produce a usable PDB.

Additional Information

The workaround I put in our configuration is the following:

###############################################################################
# Ensure all builds always have debug info built
###############################################################################
IF(WIN32)
    add_definitions("/Zi")
    #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    # Since /Zi implies /OPT:NOREF, explicitly enable /OPT:REF on all
    # release builds (this ensures all unused symbols are stripped)
    #--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    set(CMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_RELEASE "${CMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_RELEASE} /OPT:REF")
    set(CMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_MINSIZEREL "${CMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_MINSIZEREL} /OPT:REF")
    set(CMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_RELWITHDEBINFO "${CMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_RELWITHDEBINFO} /OPT:REF")
ENDIF()

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Notes
(0024813) Eric Gross (reporter) 2011-01-17 16:04	As an update, the workaround I listed previously was not quite correct as it generated warnings in some configurations. Someone else fixed this in our trunk to only add the /Zi flag during release builds rather than always. This is the workaround we use currently: ############################################################################### # Ensure all builds always have debug info built ############################################################################### IF(WIN32) # make the Release version create a PDB set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE} /Zi") # minimize the size or the resulting DLLs set(CMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_RELEASE "${CMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_RELEASE} /OPT:REF") ENDIF()

(0034592) Christian Bühler (reporter) 2013-11-27 11:39 edited on: 2013-11-27 11:43	I am using CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS_RELEASE instead of CMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_RELEASE and added /DEBUG additonally

(0041688) Kitware Robot (administrator) 2016-06-10 14:27	Resolving issue as `moved`. This issue tracker is no longer used. Further discussion of this issue may take place in the current CMake Issues page linked in the banner at the top of this page.

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2010-04-28 15:57	Eric Gross	New Issue
2011-01-17 15:56	David Cole	Assigned To	=> David Cole
2011-01-17 15:56	David Cole	Status	new => assigned
2011-01-17 16:04	Eric Gross	Note Added: 0024813
2011-10-25 22:21	David Cole	Assigned To	David Cole =>
2011-10-25 22:21	David Cole	Status	assigned => backlog
2013-11-27 11:39	Christian Bühler	Note Added: 0034592
2013-11-27 11:43	Christian Bühler	Note Edited: 0034592
2016-06-10 14:27	Kitware Robot	Note Added: 0041688
2016-06-10 14:27	Kitware Robot	Status	backlog => resolved
2016-06-10 14:27	Kitware Robot	Resolution	open => moved
2016-06-10 14:27	Kitware Robot	Assigned To	=> Kitware Robot
2016-06-10 14:31	Kitware Robot	Status	resolved => closed