[Lazarus] Large program size - 1.8 MB for empty GUI project

[Bogusław Brandys]

Marc Weustink wrote:
> Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
>> 2009/4/7 Mattias Gärtner <nc-gaertnma at netcologne.de>:
>>> Uses sections in implementation sections are buggy as long as I know fpc. The
>>> problems are known but apparently too hard to track and fix. The bugs appear at
>>> random and with various degrees depending on platform and fpc version. In some
>>> years you think the bugs are fixed, and then they come back.
>>> You have been warned: Don't use the imp sections.
>>>
>>> I thought this was known:
>>> http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/DesignGuidelines
>> This is the first I here of this. I was always taught to limit the
>> usage of the Interface section's uses clause, so you can prevent
>> circular unit issues. So is FPC the opposite of Delphi in this
>> regards?
> 
> No, but the problem is caused by the way fpc stores info in the .ppu
> Somehow it is possible that the checksum of the interface part stored in 
> the .ppu is affected by the implementation section.
> When editing sources this can lead to strange results, the compiler 
> might think in some cases an interface is changed or not.
> When Lazarus started we put a lot in the uses section of the 
> implementation part. When some source was changed, sometimes a 3 or 
> fourtime compile attempt was needed to compile the while LCL, since 
> everytime the compiler thought a unit was changed whil it was not. 
> Restarting compilation (and keeping the existing units) in most cases 
> resulted in a compiled LCL.
> To avoid this and to make the LCL usabole as "library", most unit cirles 
> were removed. One way to ensure that is by putting all uses in the 
> interface section.
> 
>> I have used FPC since 2.0.2 under Linux and Windows and haven't had
>> any issues. I limit the usage of interface uses clause as much as
>> possible. I believed that is why the smartlinking works so well with
>> fpGUI - I can create a GUI application that is only 340KB in size.
> 
> It might depend on how you compile fpGUI.
> 
> Anyway, back to the subject, I cannot imagine why FPC when smartlinking 
> makes a difference between interface and implementation uses. Especially 
> if you use an external linker, like on linux.
> 
> Marc
> 

Doesn't it require anyway recompilation of all lcl units with -CX option 
(smart linkable) ?

Btw a little different question : what is needed to allow lineinfo 
reading stack trace from external file (in case of exception) for 
example of the name corresponding to exe name but with different 
extension. FPC can now dump debug info into such separate file. Such 
feature would be very useful as compilation option for example.


Boguslaw