strip(1): will it goof anything?

Guy Harris guy at sun.uucp
Wed Oct 9 04:29:22 AEST 1985


> 	I have begun using strip(1) to remove the symbol tables,
> 	etc. from my object files.  My question is this: are there
> 	any side effects from doing this?  Will it cause my process
> 	to be swapped out more often because of its now limited
> 	storage area, or will it even matter?

An executable image consists, roughly, of a header, code/data, and a symbol
table.  The symbol table is not even looked at by UNIX when it runs the
executable image.  Stripping the symbol table has *no* effect on executing
an image; it certainly doesn't "limit" the "storage area" of the image,
whatever that means (a program will get swapped out, or paged out, more
often if its address space size increases, or if the *physical* memory
available on the machine decreases, or if the address space of other
processes on the machine increases - "strip" affects none of these).

	Guy Harris



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