[Nix-dev] sbcl image executables and patch-elf

[Tomas Hlavaty]

Hi Eike,

> I just found out that this is the strip utility from binutils and I'm
> wondering how it can do such a harm…

strip does what it is supposed to do.  In the usual C world, executables
can contain lots of other information, e.g. debugging symbols etc.
strip removes this additional information while it is not usually needed
on production systems and take significant amount of space.

However, you tried to create a self-contained sbcl executable
application in one executable file.  This means that the lisp image
(usually a separate file) is concatenated to the executable file.  If
you run strip on this executable, it will remove the lisp image,
breaking the application.

Cheers,

Tomas