How to compile the codegen in debug mode?

[SteveBoxite]

I would like to extend the functionality of Cranelift and test the implemented features with some example Rust programs I have written. To do so, I need to be able to run cargo-clif in a debugger.

Is there an official way to compile the toolchain (cranelift module + rustc_codegen) with debug information?The y.sh file does not provide an argument to build the toolchain with "dev" profile and when I manually replace "release" with "debug" in build_sysroot.rs and build_backend.rs, the output cargo-clif binary still lacks debug information.

[bjorn3]

Removing the --release argument in build_backend.rs and replacing the "release" with "debug" should be enough to get debuginfo for cg_clif. You don't want to debug the cargo-clif executable. That is a thin wrapper around cargo which merely tells rustc to load librustc_codegen_cranelift.so and to set a couple of flags. Try running cargo-clif build -v and then run the relevant rustc command that is shown in your debugger.