Question

The project I’m compiling uses CMake, which loves absolute pathnames.

When I compile with debugging information enabled, gcc puts those long names into .debug_str sections, which is bad for debugging. I’d like to have short relative-to-project-root pathnames there instead.

Is there some option to tell gcc to strip some part of pathname before emitting debug data? Or, maybe, there is some tool that could do that on compiled binaries?

I’ve tried using SET(CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS ON) (which seems to be frowned upon by devs) option, but as I’m using out-of-source builds, pathnames are still not in the form I’d want them to be. I.e. they’re ./../src/mod_foo/foo.c instead of mod_foo/foo.c.

Answer 1

You can set the RULE_LAUNCH_COMPILE property of a CMake target to have CMake invoke a shell script which transforms the source file path to a project relative path before invoking gcc. Use the CMake function configure_file to generate a shell script which knows about the PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR and PROJECT_BINARY_DIR of your project.

In your outermost CMakeLists.txt add the following code:

configure_file(
    "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/gcc_debug_fix.sh.in"
    "${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/gcc_debug_fix.sh"
    @ONLY)

add_executable (MyExecutable ...)

set_target_properties(MyExecutable PROPERTIES 
    RULE_LAUNCH_COMPILE "${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/gcc_debug_fix.sh")

The following template shell script gcc_debug_fix.sh.in needs to go to the root directory of the CMake project:

#!/bin/sh

PROJECT_BINARY_DIR="@PROJECT_BINARY_DIR@"
PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR="@PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR@"

# shell script invoked with the following arguments
# $(CXX) $(CXX_DEFINES) $(CXX_FLAGS) -o OBJECT_FILE -c SOURCE_FILE

# extract parameters
SOURCE_FILE="${@: -1:1}"
OBJECT_FILE="${@: -3:1}"
COMPILER_AND_FLAGS=${@:1:$#-4}

# make source file path relative to project source dir
SOURCE_FILE_RELATIVE="${SOURCE_FILE:${#PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR} + 1}"

# make object file path absolute
OBJECT_FILE_ABSOLUTE="$PROJECT_BINARY_DIR/$OBJECT_FILE"

cd "$PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR"

# invoke compiler
exec $COMPILER_AND_FLAGS -c "${SOURCE_FILE_RELATIVE}" -o "${OBJECT_FILE_ABSOLUTE}"

The shell script uses the information from the variables PROJECT_BINARY_DIR and PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR to transform the path of the source file to a path relative to the project root and the object file’s path to an absolute path. Because gcc gets passed a project relative path now, .debug_str should use that path, too.

The following caveats apply:

• Be sure to set the executable bit of gcc_debug_fix.sh.in.
• For the script to work CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS has to set to OFF again.
• The script makes assumptions about the location of the file paths on the command line. This may not work if CMake uses a different rule to invoke the compiler. A more robust solution would be to scan the script arguments for the -o and -c flags.