CODEWITHSUNDEEP
releasewindbgdebug-symbols
imak
imak

Reputation: 6689

release vs debug builds

If I have to perform debugging via WinDbg, are there are pro or cons or having release vs debug builds? I am just wondering if there are any limitations of doing debugging with the release build

Upvotes: 1

Views: 502

Answers (2)

Siva Charan
Siva Charan

Reputation: 18064

Go through this URL, there is a nice discussion related to this

Separate 'debug' and 'release' builds?

Upvotes: 1

sharptooth
sharptooth

Reputation: 170479

First of all you need debug information (.pdb) which you can have in both. Then release builds are usually optimized:

  • some variables are mapped to registers (and no longer occupy memory),
  • some functions are inlined (and you can't put a breakpoint onto them)
  • some code is reordered

and this makes it much harder to understand what's going on at the moment.

So in general release builds will be notable faster, but often harder to debug. Other than that you shouldn't see any serious difference.

Upvotes: 2

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