building_with_debug_symbols.md

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# Building with Debug Symbols

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By default, a release build of Firefox will not generate debug symbols

suitable for debugging or post-processing into the

{ref}`breakpad <crash-reporting>` symbol format. Use the

following {ref}`mozconfig <configuring-build-options>` settings

to do a build with symbols:

## Building Firefox with symbols

There is a single configure option to enable building with symbols on

all platforms. This is enabled by default so unless you have explicitly

disabled it your build you should include symbols.

```

ac_add_options --enable-debug-symbols

```

This can optionally take an argument for the type of symbols that need

to be produced (like "-g3"). By default it uses "-g" on Linux and MacOS.

This value takes precedence over the flags set in `MOZ_DEBUG_FLAGS`

Note that this will override the values provided for `CFLAGS` and

`CXXFLAGS`.

## Breakpad symbol files

After the build is complete, run the following command to generate an

archive of {ref}`Breakpad <crash-reporting>` symbol files:

```bash

mach buildsymbols

```

Treeherder uses an additional `uploadsymbols` target to upload

symbols to a socorro server. See

{searchfox}`toolkit/crashreporter/tools/upload_symbols.py`

for more information about the environment variables used by this

target.

## `make package`

If you use `make package` to package your build, symbols will be

stripped. If you want to keep the symbols in the patches, you need to

add this to your mozconfig:

```

ac_add_options --disable-install-strip

```