Compiling Programs


Compiler Option or Library	What It Does	When to Use It
Debugging symbols option (usually -g)	Generates debugging information in the symbol table.	Before debugging any program with TotalView.
Optimization option (usually -O)	Rearranges code to optimize your program’s execution. Some compilers won’t let you use the -O option and the -g option at the same time. Even if your compiler lets you use the -O option, don’t use it when debugging your program, since strange results often occur.	After you finish debugging your program.
multi-process programming library (usually dbfork)	Uses special versions of the fork() and execve() system calls. In some cases, you need to use the -lpthread option. For more information about dbfork, see “Linking with the dbfork Library” contained in the “Compilers and Platforms” Chapter of the TotalView Reference Guide.	Before debugging a multi-process program that explicitly calls fork() or execve(). See “Debugging Processes That Call the fork() Function” and “Debugging Processes that Call the execve() Function”.


RELATED TOPICS
Compilers and platforms	"Compilers and Platforms" in the TotalView Platforms Guide
The dbfork library	"Linking with the dbfork Library" in the TotalView Platforms Guide
Assembler code	“Viewing the Assembler Version of Your Code”

When opening a file, TotalView uses the file's extension to determine the programming language used. If you are using an unusual extension, you can manually associate your extension with a programming language by setting the TV::suffixes variable in a startup file. For more information, see the “TotalView Variables” chapter in the TotalView Reference Guide.