How to avoid symbols and source paths in iOS binary?

Question

When I compile the release version of my iOS app (based on standard Apple supplied iOS app template), look into the resulting executable binary, I see all sorts of symbols and even local cpp source and header paths in there. I'm really stumped why this is (I haven't enabled RTTI*). Especially the source file paths make me feel uncomfortable sending this app across the globe (why should everyone be able to see the directory layout of my development machine?).

Here's are two (randomly picked, moderated) excerpts:

TS/../ACTORS/CActorCanvasCharPart.cpplastMeshcapVerticesOFF BOUNDSupload VERTICES: %d 20CActorCanvasCharPartgrassscrub/Volumes/Data/iOS_projects/code/MyAppName_proj/MyAppName/source/STATES/GAMES/2/CStateGame2_grass.cppbaseShadowmowerstartmowerloopmowermowerCharcutGrassChargrassStuffgrassParticles/Volumes/Data/iOS_projects/code/MyAppName_proj/MyAppName/source/STATES/GAMES/2/CStateGame2_grass.h17CStateGame2_grasssinwriteStroke/Volumes/Data/iOS_projects/code/MyAppName_proj/MyAppName/source/STATES/GAMES/2/CStateGame2_flowers.hflowerBedsandTrailclickstart3inplace2sandDrag/Volumes/Data/iOS_projects/code/MyAppName_proj/MyAppName/source/STATES/GAMES/2/CStateGame

And here are a lot of symbols for self-defined types and structs:

CAssetMgr="_vptr$CMgrBase"^^?"pMain"^{CMain}"inited"B"curveCount"S"curveSpecs"^{CCurveSpec}"gameSpecs"[23{CGameStateSpec="header"{SpecDiskHeader="type"i"version"S}"gameID"C"backgroundColor"{CRGBAcolorf="r"f"g"f"b"f"a"f}"clickPointColor"{CRGBAcolorf="r"f"g"f"b"f"a"f}"clickPointIconColor"{CRGBAcolorf="r"f"g"f"b"f"a"f}"hintColor"{CRGBAcolorf="r"f"g"f"b"f"a"f}}]"currentFont"^{CCharset}"userCharParts"^^{CCharPart}"words"{CDataSet<CName4,CCharArray>="_vptr$CObjectBase"^^?"pMain"^{CMain}"count"i"data"*"dataSize"l}"sets"{CDataSet<CName16,CCharArray>="_vptr$CObjectBase"^^?"pMain"^{CMain}"count"i"data"*"dataSize"l

Can this be avoided, how?

*UPDATE: I just found out that RTTI is on by default. So I cleaned the target, disabled RTTI (GCC_ENABLE_CPP_RTTI = NO) and recompiled. I still see a lot of symbols and source paths in the binary.

UPDATE 2: I checked a few other apps from the app store, and many of them also have their source file paths show up. Pretty scary, if you ask me:

Joined Up Lite
/Users/lloydy/Documents/Development/iPhone/ABC Joined Up/main.m
/Users/lloydy/Documents/Development/iPhone/ABC Joined Up/Classes/SettingsView.m

Crayon Physics
/Users/smproot/Desktop/unzip/CrayonPhysics/v104/Classes/crayon/src/ceng/gameutils/killspriteslowly/killspriteslowly.cpp
/Users/smproot/Desktop/unzip/CrayonPhysics/v104/Classes/crayon/src/ceng/tasks/task/sdl/mixer/ctaskaudiosdlmixer.cpp

Wall Times
/Users/fred/_WORK/ZDNDRP/WallTimes/main.m
/Users/fred/_WORK/ZDNDRP/WallTimes/Classes/SystemCategories.m

Jumbo Calculator
/Users/Christopher/Documents/Development/JumboCalculator 1.0.3/main.m
/Users/Christopher/Documents/Development/JumboCalculator 1.0.3/Classes/CalculatorFaceViewController.m

Answer 1

The file paths are most likely from assert macros which stringify __FILE__ as part of their failure message. iOS's implementation of assert(3) does this, as do the NSAssert macros.

You can remove asserts in release builds by defining NDEBUG (for the C asserts) and NS_BLOCK_ASSERTIONS (for NSAsserts).

Answer 2

In Xcode set Deployment Prostprocessing to Yes in order to trigger Xcode to call the strip command during build process. Then you don't see any source path via nm -a.

However, I still see the source paths of some m files via the strings command :/

Answer 3

Have ticked the strip debug symbols in the build settings? You can do this (or not) depending on the configuration (build/release). Also you can look into Objective-C Code Obfuscation (which is long winded). From what I gather, you cannot completely remove objective-c information as all method calls are done dynamically, so the library has to have information about your classes/method names in order to function. A useful tip here.

If you have c++ code then you can use the gcc strip utility, although I'm not sure how it like Objetive-C++, if it doesn't you could compile all you cpp into a lib, strip that and link against it in your iOS project.

Answer 4

What worked for me was setting Generate Debug Symbols to No for release builds. This is under the Apple LLVM 7.0 - Code Generation in Xcode 7.2.