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c++shared-librariesstatic-librariesstrip

Is it safe to strip a shared library after linking?

Let's suppose that I got lib.so, I compile the binary mySoft and I link this to lib.so.

At this point, considering that everything is working as expected, It's safe or not to take lib.so and strip it with strip -s lib.so ?

To be clear I'm not interested on linking other binaries to my lib.so after mySoft is properly generated, I'm only interested on keep mySoft working and gain some disk space and maybe a small edge in terms of performances.

Solution

  • Yes, it's safe. strip only removes symbols that are not needed (because they have already been linked). Those symbols are useful for debugging, but they are never needed just for executing the code.