Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!nuug!sigyn.idt.unit.no!hanche From: hanche@imf.unit.no (Harald Hanche-Olsen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Why is a cmpexe file so big? Message-ID: Date: 5 Oct 90 13:31:21 GMT Sender: news@idt.unit.no (Usenet news admin) Organization: The Norwegian Institute of Technology, Trondheim, Norway. Lines: 27 I just tried building a cmpexe file using the `xar' command. The result is interesting: % xar -cv pw pw.a88k pw.m68k Added element tagged m68k from 'pw.m68k' Added element tagged a88k from 'pw.a88k' % xar -tv pw type offset size alignment last-modified tag coff 0 5311 524288 90/09/16.10:27 a88k coff 262144 5066 262144 90/09/16.10:40 m68k % ls -l pw* -rwxr-xr-x 1 hanche 270420 Oct 5 13:48 pw* -rwxr-xr-x 1 hanche 5311 Sep 16 10:27 pw.a88k* -rwxr-xr-x 1 hanche 5066 Sep 16 10:40 pw.m68k* If my arithmetic is not way off, we are talking a 2500% overhead here! All right, I will admit I have been unfair here -- a test with a larger program reveals that the overhead seems to be fairly constant, i.e. about 250K. So for large programs the overhead isn't too bad percantagewise, but it's obviously a killer if you try to build up a large library of small cmpexe'd programs. Does anyone know why it has to be this way? Or does it? Ought I to submit an APR on it? - Harald Hanche-Olsen Division of Mathematical Sciences The Norwegian Institute of Technology N-7034 Trondheim, NORWAY