ghc-musl Part 5: lsupg Executable Sizes
While I am building fully static executables with multiple versions of GHC, it would be interesting to compare the file sizes! Haskell executable sizes are notoriously huge. I have noticed that the sizes have increased over time, but I would like to see some concrete numbers.
I am comparing the executables for lsupg. I am
using a local branch that contains changes related to using ghc-musl to build the
static executables, but there have been no changes to the code since
commit 05c0a8d
(current develop HEAD).
The lsupg executables have the following file sizes when
built using Stack.
| GHC Version | Dynamic (bytes) | Static (bytes) |
|---|---|---|
| 8.8.4 | 13,049,400 | 13,358,592 |
| 8.10.7 | 14,651,328 | 14,960,360 |
| 9.0.2 | 27,377,064 | 28,697,696 |
| 9.2.2 | 16,026,216 | 29,473,672 |
The lsupg executables have the following file sizes when
built using Cabal and then
stripped.
| GHC Version | Dynamic (bytes) | Static (bytes) |
|---|---|---|
| 8.8.4 | 15,706,008 | 16,015,200 |
| 8.10.7 | 15,694,784 | 15,999,720 |
| 9.0.2 | 27,533,000 | 28,849,312 |
| 9.2.2 | 16,046,696 | 29,494,152 |
I get slightly larger file sizes when I build using Cabal. There must be a
difference in ghc (or strip) options being
used…
The size of the dynamic executable when using GHC 9.2.2 is smaller than expected, with both Stack and Cabal! I do not know why. Has there been an improvement in GHC 9.2 (that only benefits dynamic executables)? I do not have time to pull on this thread at the moment. If anybody knows about this, please email me!
Previous releases of lsupg have
all been compiled using GHC 8.10. It looks like the file size
doubles when I use GHC 9.0 or GHC 9.2! Releases are
xz-compressed, but the compressed sizes are proportional to
the uncompressed sizes (still double). Since the functionality is the
same, perhaps I should release executables compiled with GHC 8.8…
There are various things I can do to decrease the size of the
executable. I can experiment with compilation options, such as
-split-sections. I can also consider using UPX, but I do not think it is
appropriate for this utility.