From: j DOT aldrich6 AT genie DOT com
Message-Id: <199606282349.AA222955744@relay1.geis.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 96 23:16:00 UTC 0000
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Subject: Re: hello world compile time

Reply to message 4426606    from NORBERTJ AT PANI on 06/28/96 12:17PM


>When compiling the hello world program, disk seems to be very busy.
>Takes about 6 seconds.  Is this about par for course.  FAQ 7. suggests
>that there is a minimum time, but it does not say what it is.
>
>Using 486dx50 with 5m in extended and plenty of swap space.

6 seconds is quite good for a hello world compile.  Consider that gcc
must load and run the following programs to compile even the simplest
code:

gcc.exe (itself, of course)
cpp.exe (preprocessor)
cc1.exe (compiler)
as.exe (assembler)
ld.exe (linker)
stubify.exe (adds DPMI stub to COFF)

Of those 6, ld usually takes the largest amount of time.  You can reduce it
marginally by stubediting ld to use a 64K transfer buffer, but the gain is
barely noticeable.

Besides, hello world is not a realistic case for measuring compilation
speed - no matter what program you compile you will still have the
overhead of loading the compiler's programs.  Try DJGPP with a
50000 line program and then see how fast it is.  :)

John