Suspicious file sizes

[mikrosk]

I have just noticed (in the snapshots):

• mint 68000 libm.a: 438,7 KB
• mint 68020 libm.a: 191,8 KB
• mintelf 68000 libm.a: 632,1 KB
• mintelf 68020 libm.a: 329,7 KB

Why are mintelf libraries larger by 200 KB? Why are 68000 libraries larger by 250-300 KB?

[th-otto]

Because lots of functions are implemented by FPU instructions instead of softfloat versions.

[th-otto]

I've also checked mint vs mintelf. The differences are

• partly simple because of the file format (elf header + section table is larger than an a.out header)
• partly because the a.out compiler puts constants into the text segment, so they can be accessed using pc-relative addressing. The elf compiler puts them into .rodata, so the assembler cannot optimize that, because it cannot assume that different sections are in range for pc-relative addressing. So the constants are accessed using absolute addressing, which is slightly larger (and also slightly slower IIRC).

[mikrosk]

Interesting, so I guess we have the first documented case when a.out is better at something. ;)

@vinriviere FYI

[th-otto]

In my fork i have added an option to gcc to specify the name of the rodata segment. That would allow to place them in the text segment again.