g, Zi, Z7

Syntax

Arguments

None

Default

Description

Options -g (Linux* OS and OS X*) and /Z7 (Windows* OS) tell the compiler to generate symbolic debugging information in the object file, which increases the size of the object file. The /Zi option (Windows OS) tells the compiler to generate symbolic debugging information in a PDB file.

Two PDB files are created, one by the compiler, and one by the linker:

• vcx0.pdb, where x represents the version of Visual C++, for example vc100.pdb.

  This file stores all debugging information for the individual OBJ files and resides in the same directory as the project makefile. If you want to change this name, use option /Fd.

• executablename.pdb

  This file stores all debug information for the .exe file and resides in the debug subdirectory.

Each time it creates a .obj file, the compiler merges debug information into vcx0.pdb.

The linker creates executablename.pdb, which contains debug information for the project's .exe file. The executablename.pdb file contains full debug information, including function prototypes, not just the type information found in vcx0.pdb. Both PDB files allow incremental updates. The linker also embeds the path to the .pdb file in the .exe or .dll file that it creates.

The compiler does not support the generation of debugging information in assemblable files. If you specify these options, the resulting object file will contain debugging information, but the assemblable file will not.

These options turn off O2 and make O0 (Linux OS and OS X) or Od (Windows OS) the default unless O2 (or higher) is explicitly specified in the same command line.

On Linux* OS and OS X*, specifying the -g or -O0 option sets the -fno-omit-frame-pointer option. On Linux* OS, the -debug inline-debug-info option will be enabled by default if you compile with optimizations (option -O2 or higher) and debugging is enabled (option -g).

IDE Equivalent

Windows: General > Debug Information Format (/Zi)

Linux: None

OS X: General > Generate Debug Information (-g)

Alternate Options