Re: Question about core files

On Thu, 8 Oct 2009, Glynn Clements wrote:

>
> Holger Kiehl wrote:
>
>>>> Most the time I compile my application without the -g option due to
>>>> performance reasons.
>>>
>>> The -g switch has absolutely no effect upon performance. It simply
>>> causes and additional section to be added to the resulting binary.
>>> When the program is run normally (i.e. not under gdb), that section
>>> won't be mapped. The only downside to -g is that it increases the size
>>> of the file.
>>
>> But when executing the program will it not read the whole binary which
>> is much larger with debug information and so will take longer (just the
>> first reading of the binary)?
>
> No. Binaries aren't "read", they're mapped (with mmap); pages are read
> into memory on demand. The loader only maps the sections which are
> actually required, which doesn't include the debug sections.
>
Thanks for the clarification!

Holger