C++ executables all 38kb?

One · 5 Jul 2012 at 20:29

I'm just starting to learn C++ as something to do that's more productive than watching TV or playing games. All these simple programs I'm compiling are 38kb. Why is this?

tntcoder · 5 Jul 2012 at 20:32

No special reason.

Your compiler will produce the executable and will do various forms of optimization to produce the smallest binary it can. More code = more bytes (generally speaking...)

UncleRuckus · 5 Jul 2012 at 20:32

38,000 bytes, I should imagine the programs are so small they are being rounded to the nearest thousand?

Woden · 5 Jul 2012 at 20:37

There will be a minimum file size, purely as your linking the libraries that are part of the executable. Any programs your writing right now will have little effect on the size as they will only be simple programs.

azteched · 5 Jul 2012 at 21:12

assuming you're not statically linking the standard library (otherwise your binary would be even bigger), it'll probably be due to things like iostreams, which causes lots of template instantiations.

UK-AL05 · 5 Jul 2012 at 21:42

I don't if this is still true, but a lot of file systems had a minimum allocation size.

One · 5 Jul 2012 at 22:58

Thanks guys that makes sense.

Just wrote a bit of code that made my executable 39KB