What are CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE: Debug, Release, RelWithDebInfo and MinSizeRel?

Question

From the docs page:

CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE

Specifies the build type on single-configuration generators.

This statically specifie

Answer 1

RelWithDebInfo is the same as Release, allowing you to have symbol files for debugging.

For example in Visual Studio, you'll have .pdb files and without them, it'll be hard to debug because all the signatures in the binary files are not going to be human readable and there's no way to map them to the source code.

MinSizeRel is the same as Release, with its optimization configuration just set to Minimize size, Maximize speed in Visual Studio, for example.

If I want to generate a production build, should I choose Release?

Yes, that should do the right job for you. Debug/Release are the most commonly used options.

Reading this CMAKE FAQ will actually help you a lot.