Tinier binaries?

fu3x11 · August 11, 2024, 8:13am

ive seen http servers goto 500 bytes, my hello world is 2.5kb, is there anything else i can do to make it smaller? direct compiler flags? my build.zig is below.

github.com

fu3x11/hello_nt/blob/main/build.zig

const std = @import("std");

pub fn build(b: *std.Build) void {
    const exe = b.addExecutable(.{
        .name = "main",
        .root_source_file = b.path("src/main.zig"),
        .target = b.host,
        .single_threaded = true,
        .strip = true,
        .optimize = std.builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseSmall,
    });

    build_exe_step(b, exe);
    run_exe_step(b, exe);
}

fn build_exe_step(b: *std.Build, exe: *std.Build.Step.Compile) void {
    b.installArtifact(exe);
}

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IntegratedQuantum · August 11, 2024, 8:43am

Other people have tried to make a minimal executable in zig before. Check out Smallest Echo, Part 1: Zig

squeek502 · August 11, 2024, 8:52am

If you look at the resulting file, you’ll notice that there’s a lot of padding between the sections, and each section is aligned to a 0x200 byte boundary. I’m not super familiar with the PE/COFF format, but the file format itself is likely the limiting factor you’re dealing with here.

Some potentially relevant links: