How to reduce binary size in C++
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How to reduce binary size in C++

About the Book

By reading this book you will learn how you will learn about different factors influencing the size of your C++ binaries:

  • different ways of programming, including runtime polymorphism, templates, inlining, etc
  • various compiler and linker settings
  • the intersection of the above two, such as RTTI and exceptions

About the Author

Sandor Dargo
Sandor Dargo

I am a C++ software craftsman with strong Python working in the tourism and hospitality industry and an enthusiastic blogger writing about coding, books, and the importance of stoic philosophy in a software developer's life.

I moved to software development from database operations which means that I don't just care about delivering a product as fast as possible, but I do understand the importance of stability and maintainability.

I'm passionate about delivering clean solutions, but I find even more important to help my teams to constantly raise the bar and to (re)focus on quality and clean code. I do this by explaining how high-quality work will help them in their individual careers, by introducing more meaningful development processes and automation and by teaching them industry best practices. 

Table of Contents

    • 1All that you need to know about binary files
      • How executables are generated
      • Parts of an executable
      • Main characteristics of an executable
      • The most important executable formats
      • How to inspect C++ binary files
      • Summary
    • 2Ways of coding to reduce binary size
      • How should we initialize objects?
      • Member ordering and binary sizes
      • Special member functions and binary size
      • Virtual and binary sizes
      • Use constexpr functions to reduce binary size
      • Conclusion
      • Templates and binary size
      • Summary
    • 3Reduce binary size with different compiler and linker settings
      • Optimize for space: -Os
      • Link Time Optimization (-flto)
      • Static vs. dynamic linking
      • -fdata-sections / -ffunction-sections and -Wl,--gc-sections
      • -Wl,--icf=all or -Wl,--icf==safe
      • -Wl,-s and -Wl,--strip-all
      • -Wl,--as-needed
      • -fno-unroll-loops
      • -mllvm -inline-threshold=
      • -fstack-protector
      • Summary
    • 4In the intersection of coding techniques and compiler flags to limit binary sizes
      • Forbid RTTI for cleaner and smaller code
      • Exceptions are not zero-cost when it comes to binary size
      • Make noexcept whatever it makes sense
      • Summary
    • 5Conclusion
    • 6Appendix
      • Special member functions
      • How to pass functions to functions
      • Dynamic linking vs. static linking

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