Honey, I shrunk {fmt}: bringing binary size to 14k and ditching the C++ runtime

Re:Honey, I shrunk {fmt}: bringing binary size to 14k and di... by masklinn on Sunday September 01, 2024 @06:49AM (#41415820)

That doesn't really explain where the dependency on the C++ runtime come from tho, as far as I know the dependency chain is std::allocator -> operator new -> malloc, but from the post the replacement only strips out the `operator new`.

Notably I thought the issue would be the throwing of `std::bad_alloc`, but the new version still implements std::allocator, and throws bad_alloc.

And so I assume the issue is that the global `operator new` is concrete (it just takes the size of the allocation), thus you need to link to the C++ runtime just to get that function? In which case you might be able to get the same gains by redefining the global `operator new` and `operator delete`, without touching the allocator.

Alternatively, you might be able to statically link the C++ runtime and have DCE take care of the rest.

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Re:Honey, I shrunk {fmt}: bringing binary size to 14k and di... by kllrnohj on Sunday September 01, 2024 @02:01PM (#41418878)

Yes they could have just defined their own global operator new/delete to have a micro-runtime. Same as you'd do if you were doing a kernel in C++. Super easy, barely an inconvenience

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Re:Honey, I shrunk {fmt}: bringing binary size to 14k and di... by vitaut on Sunday September 01, 2024 @11:01PM (#41422269)

Changing global new/delete is a non-starter in a reusable library. Allocator is a much more localized change and roughly the same amount of work.

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Re:Honey, I shrunk {fmt}: bringing binary size to 14k and di... by gobblegobble2 on Sunday September 01, 2024 @02:16PM (#41418978)

> Notably I thought the issue would be the throwing of `std::bad_alloc`, but the new version still implements std::allocator, and throws bad_alloc.

The new version uses `FMT_THROW` macro instead of a bare throw. The article says "One obvious problem is exceptions and those can be disabled via FMT_THROW, e.g. by defining it to abort". If you check the `g++` invocation, that's exactly what the author does.

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Re:Honey, I shrunk {fmt}: bringing binary size to 14k and di... by masklinn on Monday September 02, 2024 @04:08AM (#41423522)

The author also compiles with `-fno-exceptions` which should already have the same behaviour.

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