Re: [Mingw-users] Executable size for C++ code

[Earnie B. <ear...@ya...>]

--- bis...@bt... wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I've been using the MingW g++ compiler for compiling C++ programs (both
> console and GUI apps using WxWindows). It seems to me that the executables
> produced by MingW g++ are always very large compared to VC++. For example
> the C++ version of hello (using iostream/cout) produces an executable of
> almost 75K (after stripping) and the minimial WxWin statically linked
> program takes about 1M (again, after stripping) as opposed to around 400K
> using VC++ . C executables are much better.
> 
> My questions:
> a) Is this a limitation of the MingW C++ compiler/linker ? I was told by
> someone that it is not good at removing unneeded code - is this true ?
> b) What else can I do (except using compression software) to reduce
> executable size ?
> 

Try this set of switches for CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS:
-O2 -fnative-struct -malign-double -mwide-multiply -ffast-math
-mpreferred-stack
-boundary=4 -ffunction-cse -fexpensive-optimizations -malign-functions=4
-malign
-jumps=4 -malign-loops=4

YMMV with it but I've finally been able to get the cygwin1.dll below 1M in
size.  You may even try -O3 which adds -finline-functions but if you have
inline assembler code that will cause problems.

Cheers,

=====
Earnie Boyd
mailto:ear...@ya...

---         <http://earniesystems.safeshopper.com>         ---
--- Cygwin: POSIX on Windows <http://gw32.freeyellow.com/> ---
---   Minimalist GNU for Windows <http://www.mingw.org/>   ---

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