Difference between public configurations (release & debug) and private configurations (common)

[NoumanRao]

I am using 'Segger Embedded Studio'. While changing the settings of a project in options, why we select Private Configurations (common)? I have seen this procedure in many tutorials. When should we use public configurations (release & debug)?

[Andy]

I don't use SES, I use Eclipse. I assume that what you are talking about is build configurations? If that's the case, you can use them to compile "different versions" of the same project without making any actual changes in code.

For example, maybe you want logging enabled in the Debug config and logging disabled in the Release config. You can define some conditions for the preprocessor to compile code differently for different configurations, e.g. you can have DEBUG in your preprocessor definitions and wrap code with #ifdef DEBUG sentences.

You can also have different build steps in different configurations - for example you could have the Release config generate DFU zip files automatically when you compile and so on.