Re: C23 thoughts and opinions

On 09/06/2024 23:06, Michael S wrote:

On Sun, 9 Jun 2024 22:49:39 +0100
bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
 

On 09/06/2024 21:40, Michael S wrote:

I can only tell you what works well for me. I can't force you to
use it. Also, I can't prevent you from trying to use something that
no longer works well due to absence of support, i.e. old msys/mingw.
  

>
I was trying to install the LATEST version of gcc on Windows! That
would 13.x, which I've done before, perhaps hitting on the right link
by chance.
>
'gcc' /can/ be run from a pure Windows command line, as I've been
using versions of it for years.
>
But they don't make it easy, as gcc is perceived to be tied to WSL
MSYS2 MINGW CYGWIN.
>
I've had another go at this elusive compiler, this time apparently
successful. Here are the steps I used:

...

>
The end result was a 1.4GB installation of gcc 14.1.0. Using 'gcc
hello.c -Os -s' gives of 48KB (with 10.3 it was 88KB). It still
imports msvcrt.dll, but not printf (it does import vfprintf).
>

 It sounds like you ended up with gcc distro based on 12 y.o. Microsoft
DLL that does not support majority of c11 library features and likely
does not support few c99 library features as well.
If you were a little less stubborn, in 10 minutes you could have have
distro based on new ucrt DLL that is closer to new C standard and
generates smaller binaries.
And likely occupies less than 1.4 GB.

I downloaded a different 14.1 version that was 'only' 0.8GB. (Compared to 1.4GB; it's still 2000 times bigger than my main compiler!)
That uses UCRT, but the size difference is probably due to not including LLVM/Clang stuff. (Which didn't work anyway; I think clang triggered my AV.)
This now gives a hello.c executable of 22KB; it was 48KB with the 1.4GB download, and 88KB with 10.3.0.

BTW, I don't understand why MSVC produces smaller binaries with old MS C
RTL DLL while gcc produces smaller binaries with new MS C RTL DLL.
But that's undeniable fact.

I think the sizes of the runtime libraries are irrelevant if they are both dynamically linked. It's what the compiler puts directly into the executable that makes the difference. And here they are just too diverse in how they work. It can't be the 20 bytes of code for hello.c that affects it.