What the developer wrote
Authored by fanquake
depends: strip when installing qt
Otherwise we end up with ~1.5GB of binaries (Linux) when DEBUG=1..
What changed, and why it matters
This commit changes the Bitcoin Core build system so that when Qt (the graphical user-interface library) is installed into the dependency staging area, its binaries are stripped of debug symbols. The change only affects build artifact size and does not alter runtime behavior, network protocol, wallet logic, or consensus code. It is a build-size optimization, not a security fix.
No security action required. Treat as a normal build-system optimization. If you rely on debug symbols for the Qt dependency when building with DEBUG=1, verify that this change does not impede debugging workflows; the commit message suggests it is intentional to reduce disk usage.
Security signals we found
No strong security signals were identified.
Evidence from the diff
The patch adds --strip to the cmake --install command in depends/packages/native_qt.mk and depends/packages/qt.mk. This causes CMake to strip debug symbols from Qt binaries during the install/stage phase of the depends build. The commit message explicitly states the motivation: avoiding ~1.5 GB of binaries when DEBUG=1. No functional code is modified, and no security vulnerability is addressed.
Changed components
depends/packages/native_qt.mkdepends/packages/qt.mkInspect captured patch +2 / −2
diff --git a/depends/packages/native_qt.mk b/depends/packages/native_qt.mk
index fc59c4d3..38469d6b 100644
--- a/depends/packages/native_qt.mk
+++ b/depends/packages/native_qt.mk
@@ -147,7 +147,7 @@ define $(package)_build_cmds
endef
define $(package)_stage_cmds
- cmake --install . --prefix $($(package)_staging_prefix_dir)
+ cmake --install . --prefix $($(package)_staging_prefix_dir) --strip
endef
define $(package)_postprocess_cmds
diff --git a/depends/packages/qt.mk b/depends/packages/qt.mk
index 4daffeb1..9ac4088e 100644
--- a/depends/packages/qt.mk
+++ b/depends/packages/qt.mk
@@ -278,7 +278,7 @@ define $(package)_build_cmds
endef
define $(package)_stage_cmds
- cmake --install . --prefix $($(package)_staging_prefix_dir)
+ cmake --install . --prefix $($(package)_staging_prefix_dir) --strip
endef
define $(package)_postprocess_cmds
Why this scored 15/100
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