Re: Can't run "install-strip" in binutils 2.18 ... ?

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Paul,

> Is there another/better way to do this?

Not really, sorry. :-(

>  I wanted to have the binutils
> tools stripped when they are installed.  Typically for autoconfiscated
> environments I run "make install-strip" to do this.
>
> For binutils if I try this I get:
>
> make: *** No rule to make target `install-strip'.  Stop.
>
> It looks like the top-level makefile in binutils doesn't grok the
> install-strip target.

Correct.  If you are really miffed by this, please file a bug report at
http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/.  The top level binutils makefile is 
shared by the gcc and gdb projects, so any changes to it will have to be 
acceptable to them as well.

> However if I look at the individual targets like
> the binutils subdirectory, they do have install-strip.

True.  I am hoping that this is sufficient for your purposes.


> On the gripping hand, though, I'm trying to cross-compile binutils and
> it doesn't work to cd directly to binutils-2.18/binutils and run "make
> install-strip" then it tries to use the "strip" command (which fails)
> instead of the cross-strip program, because the sub-makefiles expect the
> cross-tools to be provided as command-line overrides on the make
> invocation.

When I tried this on my machine it worked without any problems.  I am 
not sure exactly what you mean when you complain that it uses the 
"strip" command instead of the cross-strip program, since surely it is 
the host's strip command that should be used.  For example this is what 
happens when I run "make install-strip" in the binutils build directory 
of an arm-eabi toolchain.  [Edited to remove superfluous stuff]:

 make INSTALL_PROGRAM="/bin/sh 
/work/sources/binutils/current/install-sh -c -s" \
 install_sh_PROGRAM="/bin/sh /work/sources/binutils/current/install-sh 
-c -s" \
 INSTALL_STRIP_FLAG=-s `test -z 'strip' || \
    echo "INSTALL_PROGRAM_ENV=STRIPPROG='strip'"` install
[...]
 STRIPPROG='strip' /bin/sh ./libtool --mode=install /bin/sh 
/work/sources/binutils/current/install-sh -c -s 'size' 
'/dev/shm/del-me/install/bin/arm-eabi-size'
 libtool: install: /bin/sh /work/sources/binutils/current/install-sh -c 
-s size /dev/shm/del-me/install/bin/arm-eabi-size
[...]

And libtool then installs a stripped binary into the install directory:

 % file ../install/bin/arm-eabi-readelf
../install/bin/arm-eabi-readelf: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, 
version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 
2.6.9, stripped

According to a comment in the binutils/configure file you can also use 
the environment variable STRIP to override the strip program used when 
installing stripped binaries.

Cheers
  Nick