Michael van der Gulik wrote:

On Linux, how do you tell the build scripts to make GCC compile with the -g flag rather than -O2 (i.e. don't optimise and leave debugging symbols in the VM)?

There is a (not always followed) convention for writing Makefiles where the Make variable CFLAGS is only used for debugging flags, optimization flags, and warning flags, and specifically _not_ used for include flags, define flags, or any flags that are required for correct compilation. If this convention is followed then one can do:

$ make CFLAGS=-g whatever

That is, CFLAGS is set on the Make command line. Setting CFLAGS on the command line causes that value to override the value set in the Makefile, if any, and Make passes this value on to the C compiler. Unfortunately, the SqueakVM makefiles don't follow this convention in at least a few cases. For example, in npsqueak/Makefile, several -I's are included in CFLAGS, and when one does:

$ cd platforms/unix $ make CFLAGS=-g

the compile of npsqueak.c fails because it can't find several include files. If instead the -I's and -fPIC were moved to the actual compile of npsqueak.c and npunix.c, then the convention works.

If you decide to do some Makefile editing, consider changing the Makefiles to follow this convention, and submit a patch.

-gavin...