Strip/Remove debug symbols and archive names from a static library

Question

I have a static library (C++) (say, libmylib_DARWIN.a and libmylib_LINUX.a for 2 architectures) compiled on my Mac using clang (Apple LLVM version 9.0.0 (clang-900.0.39.2) if is of any relevance).

Right now, there are two problems:

1. The static library (using a current build configuration) contains debug symbols

2. It also shows names of the object files that were used for the archive

   otool -Iv libmylib_DARWIN.a

   Archive : libmylib_DARWIN.a libmylib_DARWIN.a(firstobjectfile.cpp.o) libmylib_DARWIN.a(secondobjectfile.cpp.o) ....

I would like to remove both the debug symbols and archived filenames from this library. I wonder if there is a convenient way to do it without changing my build configuration.

• will strip on Mac do it for both DARWIN- and LINUX-built libraries? Anything I should pay attention too?
• strip doesn't seem to remove the archive filenames

There are some similar questions on SO; however, the ones I found deal with either iOS, Objective C, do not talk about multiplatform, and do not mention archive names.

Answer 1

This script implements Sigismondo's suggestion (unpacks the archive, strips each object file individually, renames them 1000.o, 1001.o, etc., and repacks). The parameters for ar crus may vary depending on your version of ar.

#!/bin/bash
# usage: repack.sh file.a

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    echo "usage: repack file.a"
    exit 1
fi

if [ -d tmprepack ]; then
    /bin/rm -rf tmprepack
fi

mkdir tmprepack
cp $1 tmprepack
pushd tmprepack

basename=${1##*/}

ar xv $basename
/bin/rm -f $basename
i=1000
for p in *.o ; do
    strip -d $p
    mv $p ${i}.o
    ((i++))
done

ar crus $basename *.o
mv $basename ..

popd
/bin/rm -rf tmprepack
exit 0