The CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is currently set as 'Debug' in case BR2_ENABLE_DEBUG is
set, and as 'Release' in other cases. However, while the description of
BR2_ENABLE_DEBUG is to enable debug symbols (no runtime impact), the 'Debug'
build type in CMake can actually have runtime impact. For one, because it
does not set -DNDEBUG like is done for 'Release', but also because packages
may do custom things based on it.
The question of which CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Buildroot should set, be it 'Debug',
'Release', 'RelWithDebInfo' or others, has come up several times in the
past. See some references below:
- July 2016: switch from Debug to RelWithDebInfo:
https://git.buildroot.org/buildroot/commit/?id=4b0120183404913f7f7788ef4f0f6b51498ef363
- October 2016: switch from RelWithDebInfo back to Debug:
https://git.buildroot.org/buildroot/commit/?id=104bb29e0490bfb487e2e665448dd3ca07fcc2b5
and changes to make sure Buildroot's flags are respected:
https://git.buildroot.org/buildroot/commit/?id=12494ef48f893684d0800e7f6fe39a2ceaed0451
- August 2017: bug #10246 - "BR2_ENABLE_DEBUG does not have the expected
effect for cmake packages"
https://bugs.busybox.net/show_bug.cgi?id=10246
- August 2017: mail thread following bug #10246:
http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/buildroot/2017-August/200778.html
In the last mail thread, Samuel Martin confirmed that the 'Release' build
type could be used in all cases, because Buildroot is actually making sure
that the optimization flags are those determined by Buildroot, not the
defaults of cmake, thanks to commit 12494ef48f.
But Arnout Vandecappelle objected to using always 'Release', stating that
users may actually want the extra assertions.
With the introduction of BR2_ENABLE_RUNTIME_DEBUG, Buildroot can now cater
for all cases:
- use CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release by default. This makes sure that there is no
unexpected performance degradation triggered by enabling BR2_ENABLE_DEBUG.
- users can optionally enable BR2_ENABLE_RUNTIME_DEBUG if they want runtime
debug info like assertions, at the risk of introducing performance
degradation. In this case, we switch to CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug.
- orthogonally to the above, BR2_ENABLE_DEBUG still determines passing the
'-g' flag to enable debug symbols, and BR2_OPTIMIZE_X still determines the
used optimization flags.
Signed-off-by: Thomas De Schampheleire <thomas.de_schampheleire@nokia.com>
Acked-by: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
Reviewed-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
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