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Add section on how to build debug build #22510

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38 changes: 38 additions & 0 deletions BUILDING.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -253,6 +253,44 @@ To install this version of Node.js into a system directory:
$ [sudo] make install
```

#### Building a debug build

If you run into an issue where the information provided by the JS stack trace
is not enough, or if you suspect the error happens outside of the JS VM, you
can try to build a debug enabled binary:

```console
$ ./configure --debug
$ make -j4
```

`make` with `./configure --debug` generates two binaries, the regular release
one in `out/Release/node` and a debug binary in `out/Debug/node`, only the
release version is actually installed when you run `make install`.

To use the debug build with all the normal dependencies overwrite the release
version in the install directory:

``` console
$ make install --prefix=/opt/node-debug/
$ cp -a -f out/Debug/node /opt/node-debug/node
```

When using the debug binary, core dumps will be generated in case of crashes.
These core dumps are useful for debugging when provided with the
corresponding original debug binary and system information.

Reading the core dump requires `gdb` built on the same platform the core dump
was captured on (i.e. 64 bit `gdb` for `node` built on a 64 bit system, Linux
`gdb` for `node` built on Linux) otherwise you will get errors like
`not in executable format: File format not recognized`.

Example of generating a backtrace from the core dump:

``` console
$ gdb /opt/node-debug/node core.node.8.1535359906
$ backtrace
```

### Windows

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