C++ Cookbook

1.22. Producing a Release Build

Problem

You want to produce a small, fast executable or dynamic library for distribution to your customers.

Solution

In general, to produce a release build you must

• Enable optimizations

• Enable the expansion of inline function

• Disable the generation of debugging information

Table 1-26 presents the compiler and linker options to enable optimization and inlining. There are no command-line options for disabling the generation of debugging information: when you build from the command line, debugging information is disabled by default. If you use the GCC toolset, however, you can decrease the size of executables and dynamics libraries by specifying the -s option to the linker.

Table 1-26. Compiler options to enable optimization and inlining

Toolset	Optimization	Inlining
GCC	-O3	-finline-functions [14]
Visual C++Intel	-O2	-Ob1
Metrowerks	-opt full	-inline auto -inline level=8
Comeau (Unix)	-O3
Comeau (Windows)	Same as backend, but using a slash (/) instead of a dash (-)	—inlining
Borland	-O2	-vi
Digital Mars	-o+time	Enabled by default
[14] This option is enabled automatically when -O3 is specified.

Boost.Build provides a simple mechanism for producing a release build: simply add <variant>release to your target’s requirements or use the command-line option variant=release, which can be abbreviated simply as release.

Some IDEs also provide a simple way to produce a release build. For instance, as I mentioned in Recipe 1.21 ...