Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hplsla!jima
From: jima@hplsla.HP.COM (Jim Adcock)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Eiffel vs. C++, no pointers in Eiffel
Message-ID: <6590143@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 8 Jun 89 16:20:19 GMT
References: <1339@novavax.UUCP>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 56

> I have heard that eiffel creates hideously large executables from very
> trivial programs. Does anyone have any information as to whether this is 
> true or not?? I found that using advantage C++ also produced large
> executables...one of the reason why I am using Zortech C_++ currently. It does
> not seem to have this problem (executable size seems on average to be about
> 1/5 the size of advantage c++ code).
> We're talking 35K here for a hello world program in advantage...something
> that can't be tolerated on the PC. One source gave the comparable eiffel     
> program a number even much higher.

For reference here's some sizes comparing various C and C++ compilers on
my mid-range 680x0 Un*x based system:


	linked&			compile
	executable		only

hello world using stdio.h -- ie a 'printf' statement

cc	12920			  144
CC	13056			  176
gcc	17081			  172
g++	17242			  172

hello world using stream.h -- ie cout << "hello world\n"

CC	34232			  617
g++	 ***			 4577

a null program: main(){} -- to test size of run-time environment

cc	4240			   83
CC	4372			  111
gcc	6622			  120
g++	6783			  120


*** I don't have a compiled stream library for g++
cc is hp-ux 6.5 C compiler
CC is AT&T cfront using hp-ux 6.5 as the back end
gcc is gnu-c for the 68020
g++ is gnu-c++ for the 68020

All sizes are file sizes in bytes -- code sizes are obviously somewhat
smaller -- for example cc -O -S null.c generates a _main subroutine of exactly
one machine instruction -- rts [return from subroutine]

Some conclusions:

Trivial C programs are not exactly tiny under un*x no matter what.
No great difference in executable size between C and C++ under un*x.
C and C++ executables for small programs [simple tools] are probably several 
times smaller than other OOPL exacutables due to a simpler run time environment.
G++ compiles can be several times bigger than CC compiles since G++ generates
code for in-line functions [while also maybe in-lining them.]
Sure would be nice to have an OS with good support for shared libraries.