[SOLVED] huge perl binary file after compiling 5.16.0

MisterBark · 07-12-2012, 02:10 PM

Hi!

A few years ago, I compiled perl 5.10.0 on my old server. The binary file was 16KB
I'm installing a new server with perl 5.16.0 and the resulting perl binary is 1.5MB ...

I run tones of perl scripts on the server, there is no way that I load a huge binary without reason.
My compile options and optimizations have nothing really special or stupid.

Anyone has experienced this or may have suggestions?
THANKS!

anomie · 07-12-2012, 03:34 PM

[ revising post: I misunderstood the original question! ]

Just FYI, recently compiled my own, too:

Code:

$ ./perl -v

This is perl 5, version 14, subversion 2 (v5.14.2) built for x86_64-linux

Code:

$ du -h perl
1.4M    perl

I'd point out that more and more modules keep getting included in the "core" perl. I am not planning to go through this myself at the moment, but this may be illuminating: perldoc - History/Changes.

I really don't know, but one hypothesis is that the Unicode support changes added a lot of size. Feel free to investigate further.

MisterBark · 07-12-2012, 03:49 PM

I just tried something I've never tried before :
To compile my old 5.10.0 on my new machine.

And the binary is now 1.2MB instead of 16KB ...
So it apparently does not come from the version, but from my configurations...
I have no idea what to check!

I wonder how I managed to make a 16KB binary but I also wonder how a perl binary can be almost the size of my kernel... that's ridiculous!

knudfl · 07-12-2012, 04:26 PM

Example-1 perl 5.10.0 : The binary /usr/bin/perl5 is 4.7 kB !
Example-2 perl 5.14.2 ( Fedora 17 ) : /usr/bin/perl is 5.8 kB.

May be you should strip the binary : 'strip perl'

.

MisterBark · 07-12-2012, 06:43 PM

that was a nice idea! but 1.6MB -> 1.5MB

chrism01 · 07-12-2012, 07:13 PM

It might be worth moving this to the Programming forum, but (for me) for a 'deep Perl' qn like this, I'd ask over at perlmonks.org; its where the Perl community hangs out, inc those that actually create Perl itself..

MisterBark · 07-12-2012, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrism01

It might be worth moving this to the Programming forum, but (for me) for a 'deep Perl' qn like this, I'd ask over at perlmonks.org; its where the Perl community hangs out, inc those that actually create Perl itself..

Right.
http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=981539

anomie · 07-13-2012, 12:35 AM

Duh, I had a strange feeling I was missing something obvious. A quick query with the file(1) command could have told us whether we're dealing with dynamically- or statically-linked perl. Thanks for posting the followup from perlmonks.