Update documentation suggestions for debugging the backend.

Tom Lane, with minor adjustments by me.

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
index 113596138eff9ba892bea5ae557148cd7be38196..75fb78389495a5c7baad543a7e79c21584542d7b 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
@@ -1415,10 +1415,23 @@ su - postgres
 
     
      
-      Server developers should consider using the configure options 
-      --enable-cassert and --enable-debug to enhance the
-      ability to detect and debug server errors.  Your debugger might
-      also require specific compiler flags to produce useful output.
+      When developing code inside the server, it is recommended to
+      use the configure options --enable-cassert (which
+      turns on many run-time error checks) and --enable-debug
+      (which improves the usefulness of debugging tools).
+     
+
+     
+      If using GCC, it is best to build with an optimization level of
+      at least -O1, because using no optimization
+      (-O0) disables some important compiler warnings (such
+      as the use of uninitialized variables).  However, non-zero
+      optimization levels can complicate debugging because stepping
+      through compiled code will usually not match up one-to-one with
+      source code lines.  If you get confused while trying to debug
+      optimized code, recompile the specific files of interest with
+      -O0.  An easy way to do this is by passing an option
+      to make: gmake PROFILE=-O0 file.o.