Question

I have written a minimal wxWidgets application:

stdafx.h

#define wxNO_REGEX_LIB
#define wxNO_XML_LIB
#define wxNO_NET_LIB
#define wxNO_EXPAT_LIB
#define wxNO_JPEG_LIB
#define wxNO_PNG_LIB
#define wxNO_TIFF_LIB
#define wxNO_ZLIB_LIB
#define wxNO_ADV_LIB
#define wxNO_HTML_LIB
#define wxNO_GL_LIB
#define wxNO_QA_LIB
#define wxNO_XRC_LIB
#define wxNO_AUI_LIB
#define wxNO_PROPGRID_LIB
#define wxNO_RIBBON_LIB
#define wxNO_RICHTEXT_LIB
#define wxNO_MEDIA_LIB
#define wxNO_STC_LIB

#include <wx/wxprec.h>

Minimal.cpp

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <memory>
#include <wx/wx.h>

class Minimal : public wxApp
{
public:
    virtual bool OnInit();
};

IMPLEMENT_APP(Minimal)
DECLARE_APP(Minimal)

class MinimalFrame : public wxFrame
{
    DECLARE_EVENT_TABLE()
public:
    MinimalFrame(const wxString& title);
    void OnQuit(wxCommandEvent& e);
    void OnAbout(wxCommandEvent& e);
};

BEGIN_EVENT_TABLE(MinimalFrame, wxFrame)
    EVT_MENU(wxID_ABOUT, MinimalFrame::OnAbout)
    EVT_MENU(wxID_EXIT, MinimalFrame::OnQuit)
END_EVENT_TABLE()

MinimalFrame::MinimalFrame(const wxString& title)
    : wxFrame(0, wxID_ANY, title)
{
    std::auto_ptr<wxMenu> fileMenu(new wxMenu);
    fileMenu->Append(wxID_EXIT, L"E&xit\tAlt-X", 
        L"Terminate the Minimal Example.");
    std::auto_ptr<wxMenu> helpMenu(new wxMenu);
    helpMenu->Append(wxID_ABOUT, L"&About\tF1",
        L"Show the about dialog box.");

    std::auto_ptr<wxMenuBar> bar(new wxMenuBar);
    bar->Append(fileMenu.get(), L"&File");
    fileMenu.release();
    bar->Append(helpMenu.get(), L"&Help");
    helpMenu.release();

    SetMenuBar(bar.get());
    bar.release();

    CreateStatusBar(2);
    SetStatusText(L"Welcome to wxWidgets!");
}

void MinimalFrame::OnAbout(wxCommandEvent& e)
{
    wxMessageBox(L"Some text about me!", L"About", wxOK, this);
}

void MinimalFrame::OnQuit(wxCommandEvent& e)
{
    Close();
}

bool Minimal::OnInit()
{
    std::auto_ptr<MinimalFrame> mainFrame(
        new MinimalFrame(L"Minimal wxWidgets Application"));
    mainFrame->Show();
    mainFrame.release();
    return true;
}

This minimal program weighs in at 2.4MB! (Executable compression drops this to half a MB or so but that’s still HUGE!) (I must statically link because this application needs to be single-binary-xcopy-deployed, so both the C runtime and wxWidgets itself are set for static linking)

Any tips on cutting this down? (I’m using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010)

Answer 1

You can additionally set MSVC to compile for small binary size (but this might impact performance of course) by using the flag /01. See here. Also remember that wxWidgets will need to be compiled as such for this to have any impact.

And I think that 2.4 MB for a statically linked app is pretty decent IMHO…

UPDATE: the wxWidgets wiki on executable size might bring some comfort…