Question

What decides the size of my executable c++ program file?? Apparently it does not depend only on the size/number of variables. How can i reduce the size keeping the number of variables constant?

Answer 1

1. Dynamically link to the C++ runtime.
2. Compile the executable without debugging information.
3. Compile with ‘optimize for size’ flags.
4. Remove #iostream and fstream if you can, and use low level instead
5. Also, using a lot of templates can cause size increase as well
6. Use of lot of inline functions can cause increase in size.
7. If you have lot of static and global variables then try to minimize them if possible.