Beginning with V8.12, the -v Build switch conveys to Build a notion of how the Build should be run. There are currently three possibilities: debug, optimized, and purify.

These command-line arguments are automatically converted arguments for the confBLDVARIANT Build macro. See confBLDVARIANT for a complete description of what this command-line flag does:

-v debug        creates       define(`confBLDVARIANT', `DEBUG')
-v optimized    creates       define(`confBLDVARIANT', `OPTIMIZED')
-v purify       creates       define(`confBLDVARIANT', `PURIFY')

But note that as of V8.12.7 sendmail, this -v switch affects only FreeBSD and Linux. It is silently ignored for all other operating systems. Also note that purify is not supported for any operating system. Read the RELEASE_NOTES file supplied with the sendmail source to see if more recent versions support purify and other operating systems.