Vcpkg: MSVC release configurations use /Z7

Created on 23 Nov 2019 · 6Comments · Source: microsoft/vcpkg

Description
Is there a debug flag being set incorrectly here?

https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/blob/7ca7db5285a628ef7be3661f5a152c1ab7168bf4/scripts/toolchains/windows.cmake#L26

https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/blob/7ca7db5285a628ef7be3661f5a152c1ab7168bf4/scripts/toolchains/windows.cmake#L27

The flag /Z7 appears to be (incorrectly imo) set for release configurations.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/reference/z7-zi-zi-debug-information-format?view=vs-2019

Same applies:

Proposed solution
The /Z7 flag is removed from the variables highlighted above.

Additional context
I am interested to find out if there is a genuine reason for setting /Z7 in release configurations as my general understanding is that it is not required and would appear arbitrary.

Thanks!

question

Source

heydojo

👍2 😕1

All 6 comments

I think we should have the ability to override /Z7. Unfortunately there's no strip function in Windows, so you're stuck with debug information in static libraries.

here-mikelley on 5 Jun 2020

Whoops, looks like I accidentally unassigned @grdowns from this issue. @NancyLi1013 or @grdowns - can you fix my mistake?

here-mikelley on 5 Jun 2020

I am interested to find out if there is a genuine reason for setting /Z7 in release configurations as my general understanding is that it is not required and would appear arbitrary.

Without it, we won't have debugging information for libraries in release.

KindDragon on 5 Jun 2020

👍1

@BillyONeal
Could you please help take a look about this issue?

Thanks.

NancyLi1013 on 30 Jul 2020

What @KindDragon said. There's no reason to remove debugging information; we believe CMake's default setting which includes not even stripped symbols in release mode is an incorrect default. Notably, Windows turning on debug information never increases the size of the resulting program, only in the worst case some intermediate files. All our debugging bits end up going into a PDB, and you always want PDBs even in release builds so that you can interpret stack traces etc. later.