Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 16:22:07 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Eugene Ageenko <ageson AT cs DOT joensuu DOT fi>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com, Robert Hoehne <robert DOT hoehne AT gmx DOT net>
Subject: Re: Strip and Coff2exe. File size increasing!
In-Reply-To: <351A42B3.756912F2@cs.joensuu.fi>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.980326161316.1863E-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Precedence: bulk


On Thu, 26 Mar 1998, Eugene Ageenko wrote:

> >      1) The versions of your GCC and Binutils;
> 
> Hey Man!, its me again, I have the LATEST binary distribution og GCC and related tools,
> just taken 2 days ago from SimTel. Look there for versions.

Please bear with me.  I reply to too many problem reports on any given 
day, and cannot afford keeping track of everybody and their versions.  I 
prefer to ask explicitly instead of relying on my failing memory and 
veering away of the real cause.

> $strip test.exe
> $dir
> 
> TEST     EXE        38 552  26.03.98  13:40 test.exe
> 
> # now let's use different tactic
> 
> $strip test
> $coff2exe test
> 
> TEST                34 456  26.03.98  13:41 test
> TEST     EXE        36 504  26.03.98  13:41 test.exe

Robert, it seems like `strip' from the latest Binutils prepends the stub 
twice (the added size iz 4K instead of 2K).  Can you please explain what 
happens here?

> Now the question - Is this RIGHT, that file size increaes?

What happens if you say "strip test.exe" 3 or 4 times?  Does it add 2KB 
every time or only the first time?

> Is it right that file size of stripped executable is larger that file size of
> executable produced from stripped coff file?

All the different ways to get a stripped binary (gcc -s, strip coff, and 
strip .exe) should all yield the same size.  Any other result means a bug 
somewhere.  In this case, the bug seems to be in the case when `strip' is 
invoked on stubified .exe program.

> And also: why file size increases when we try to strip executable produced
> from already stripped coff file??? 

Because it seems to add another 2KB-long stub.  Can you look at the 
larger .exe and see if the stub is indeed prepended twice?