Date:	Mon, 5 Oct 1998 21:59:28 +0100 (BST)
From:	George Foot <george DOT foot AT merton DOT oxford DOT ac DOT uk>
To:	DoctorXV AT aol DOT com
cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: Allegro for TC++?
In-Reply-To:	<b58357ce.361916e6@aol.com>
Message-ID:	<Pine.OSF.4.05.9810052133410.6929-100000@sable.ox.ac.uk>
MIME-Version:	1.0

On Mon, 5 Oct 1998 DoctorXV AT aol DOT com wrote:

> Is there a grpahics library like Allegro for Turbo C++? I have DJGPP but I
> hate it's outrageous file output size of 250k for just "Hello, World!" if I am
> doing it in C++. But in TC++ the file is only 5kb. Anyway...is there any
> graphics library for Turbo C++?

You are being unreasonable.  Firstly, you can reduce the size of
that program considerably if you stop using sledgehammers to
crack nuts.  Secondly, much of that `bloat' is in fact just a
fixed overhead -- if you make it print "Hello, World!" again,
the program won't double in size.  It shouldn't increase much at
all.

If your aim is to develop a program that just prints a line of
text on the screen in as few bytes as possible, don't use djgpp.
Don't use Turbo C either.  Both will link in libraries you don't
need to be using.

DJGPP wasn't designed to make miniature "Hello world" programs,
it was designed to write powerful 32-bit applications, in
particular ports of Unix applications.  If you want to use 
a flat memory model, 32-bit protected mode and the best
DOS-based graphics library ever, you must live with the
overhead.

Note that Allegro itself adds a significant overhead to your
programs, beacuse by default it includes support for a wide
range of hardware.  If you can be sure that you don't need all
this support, you can disable some of it and prevent it from
being included in your executable.  For example, if you're using
320x200x256 mode then you only need one of the video drivers and
one of the colour depths.  See Allegro's documentation for
information on this.

Also note that DJGPP programs can be large for other reasons --
maybe you included verbose debugging information (`-g')?  Try
running `strip' to remove all the debugging information from the
executable.  Also in C++ programs static arrays are included in
the executable in full, even if they are uninitialised -- try
making them dynamic instead, or running the `djp' executable
compressor (package `mlp*b.zip').

Also refer to the FAQ chapter 8 -- several sections there deal
with these problems.

-- 
george DOT foot AT merton DOT oxford DOT ac DOT uk

xu do tavla fo la lojban  --  http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/lojban.html

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