GCC -- reducing compiled code size

[Ignoramus3627]

We have a library that has 179385 lines of code.

With GCC, no debug information requested (no -g option) it creates a
31 meg long .a library file.

I think that it is excessive. Any idea what I can do to reduce the
size?

i

 

[Victor Bazarov]

We have a library that has 179385 lines of code.

With GCC, no debug information requested (no -g option) it creates a
31 meg long .a library file.

I think that it is excessive. Any idea what I can do to reduce the
size?

C++ _language_ imposes no requirements on the size of the produced
object code (or machine code). Please ask in the newsgroup dedicated
to your compiler (gnu.g++.help comes to mind).

V

 

[Roland Pibinger]

We have a library that has 179385 lines of code.
With GCC, no debug information requested (no -g option) it creates a
31 meg long .a library file.
I think that it is excessive. Any idea what I can do to reduce the
size?

You should consult the compiler documentation (IIRC, you need at least
-DNDEBUG -s and some optimization level).

 

[Ignoramus3627]

You should consult the compiler documentation (IIRC, you need at least
-DNDEBUG -s and some optimization level).

I tried -DNDEBUG -Os -fvisibility-inlines-hidden, it reduced size by
only about 12%. Thanks, that was helpful, though I was hoping for more.

i

 

[Roland Pibinger]

I tried -DNDEBUG -Os -fvisibility-inlines-hidden, it reduced size by
only about 12%. Thanks, that was helpful, though I was hoping for more.

-s means "Strip all symbols". It's a linker option and should
considerably reduce your code size (-Os is a compiler option that
might also help but it's not the same as -s). Linker options are
displayed with ld --help.

 

[James Kanze]

C++ _language_ imposes no requirements on the size of the produced
object code (or machine code). Please ask in the newsgroup dedicated
to your compiler (gnu.g++.help comes to mind).

Even then. The whole question is misformed: since when is there
any direct relationship between lines of code and size of a
library. With a little bit of clever use of templates, I can
get a library that big with only a thousand lines of code,
probably even less. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to
write code where the library size will be smaller than the
original C++ source code. Without seeing the exact code, it's
impossible to say whether the size is excessive or not. (Even
from a quality of implementation point of view.)