Xref: news2.mv.net comp.os.msdos.djgpp:7103
From: "John M. Aldrich" <fighteer AT cs DOT com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: DJGPP's .exe's are TOO large
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 11:55:25 -0700
Organization: Three pounds of chaos and a pinch of salt
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Message-ID: <320E2C9D.6E63@cs.com>
References: <4uk6qr$795 AT utdallas DOT edu>
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To: lafitte AT utdallas DOT edu
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lafitte AT utdallas DOT edu wrote:
> 
>      The program :
> main() {
> 
> }
> compiles to something like 30 or 40k!  What gives.  If you then use just
> a couple library functions your code size goes up to around 50 or 60k.
> Am I setting the program up wrong or what?  Do the programs really need
> that huge "library chunk" of data to run?  I can put up with the slow
> compile time, but I make up a lot of little apps, and it just seems that
> they're taking up a heck of a lot more disk space then they need be.
> Just wondering... Please mail replies to lafitte AT utdallas DOT edu
> 
> Rei

What you are seeing is the startup code for DJGPP v2 which includes support
for, among other things, command-line globbing, environment loading, and FPU
emulation, not to mention the DPMI loader.  Also, if you compile without -s,
your program includes symbol information used in debugging.  Section 8.15
of the FAQ (available as v2/faq201b.zip from any SimTel mirror) gives a
detailed description of this and also gives instructions on how to reduce
the size of your executables (to as little as 18K for a "Hello World").

Please also note that, as has been discussed before, "Hello World" is NOT
a realistic test case to determine the size of a program.  The startup
code is a fixed size, and while it does bloat small programs, it is a
trivial part of large ones.  In general, DJGPP code compiles smaller and
faster than almost any other 32-bit compiler.

FYI, here's a brief summary of the instructions in the FAQ.  To reduce the
final size of a DJGPP compiled program, you can do any or all of the
following:

1) Compile your code with -s to strip debugging information.  Alternatively,
run 'strip' on your compiled object code, then relink.

2) #include <crt0.h> in your program and define empty versions of any or all
of the functions __crt0_glob_function, __crt0_setup_arguments, and
__crt0_load_environment_file.  Note that this will DISABLE the corresponding
functionality from your program.

3) Compress your executables with DJP, the DJGPP executable packer.  Pointers
to it are in the FAQ.

HTH!

-- 
John M. Aldrich, aka Fighteer I <fighteer AT cs DOT com>

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