Re: GNAT Codesize

[fjh@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson)]

john@assen.demon.co.uk (John McCabe) writes:

>dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>
>>Yes, exactly, symbol table type information. Yes you could keep it in
>>a separate file, but 
>
>>(a) it would not save any disk space to have two files instead of one
>
>Good point, however there would be the advantage that when you wanted
>to ditch it, you just have to delete the symbol file without touching
>the executable.

Why would that be an advantage?  What's wrong with just using the
`strip' command?

>>(b) you don't load the symbol information, so it would not save load time
>
>But don't you still have to decide which bits to load and not to load?
>If you didn't have to make that decision, there presumably would be
>some [probably unnoticeable] reduction in the load time.

I don't think so.  All decent modern systems do demand-loading, so they
don't load the entire executable at once anyway.  They just load each
page as it is needed.  In any case, as you note, any overhead here
would be insignificant.

--
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
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