Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!ptimtc!nntp-server.caltech.edu!madler
From: madler@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Mark Adler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Small executables (was Re: 16mb minimum for next machines)
Message-ID: <1991May1.062022.1056@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 1 May 91 06:20:22 GMT
References: <3381@kluge.fiu.edu> <NZg714w164w@ersys.uucp>
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 28


Adrian Smith notices:
>> A standard old "Hello World" in C takes 48K with no 
>> optimized compile switches on my slab.

Nearly all of that is 48K is not necessary.  The compile switches -s
(to not include the symbol table info) and -object (to use the
MH_OBJECT format which allows small binaries to be small) reduce
the size considerably:

beauty> cc -object -s hello.c
beauty> ls -l a.out
-rwxr-xr-x  1 me          1236 Apr 30 23:02 a.out*
beauty> a.out
hello, world

A null program is 1140 bytes when compiled this way.

The -s reduces the size from 48811 to 16384, and -object takes it
from 16384 to 1236.  -object doesn't seem to work with Objective-C
programs though, so they have a minimum object size of 16K.

-s does the same thing as strip, which you can do after the compile
and load.  I have used it often to make executables from ftp sites
much smaller.

Mark Adler
madler@pooh.caltech.edu