Makefile: create a splitdebug target ?

[CdeMills]

Hello,
in order to reduce the size of the binaries but keeping the ability to debug
generated code, an option is to use the technique explained in strip manual,
i.e. 
- compile everything with the -g flag
- for each file containing executable code, install it as
  # extract the debug information only
  objcopy --only-keep-debug ${file}
${DEBUG_PREFIX}${DEBUG_BINDIR}${file}.dbg
  # transfer the file to its final location
  cp ${file} ${BINDIR}${file}
  # strip it
  objcopy --strip-debug ${BINDIR}${file}
  # tell gdb how to find the DEBUG info
  objcopy --add-gnu-debuglink=${DEBUG_PREFIX}${DEBUG_BINDIR}${file}.dbg
${BINDIR}${file}

The example is given with sh-like syntax, I'm not a wizard in "make" syntax.
The hierarchy would be
${PREFIX}: the base install dir, f.i. /usr
${DEBUG_PREFIX}: ${PREFIX} plus something specific, like "debug"
${DEBUG_BINDIR}: concatenation of ${DEBUG_PREFIX} and ${BINDIR}:
/usr/debug/usr/bin
${BINDIR}: {PREFIX}/bin as usual
this way, stripped version would go in /usr/bin and debug info in
/usr/debug/usr/bin, the last objcopy operation ensuring that gdb can find
the required debug info to interpret a core dump. Same thing for libs.

To implement this:
- add a target '--enable-splitdebug' in the config file, default false
- if this target is enabled, add a target 'install_splitdebug' in the
Makefile(s)
This should go into m4/aclocal.m4. I never went this deep into m4 details,
could someone give hints about implementing the idea ?

Regards

Pascal


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