Skip to content

[R-pkg-devel] Reducing installed package size with --strip-debug

2 messages · Ege Rubak, Dirk Eddelbuettel

Original
Ege Rubak
# 
Hi,

Based on Dirk's blog post [1] about stripping debug information from the 
shared object of my package `s2` I reduced the shared object file size 
from 7 to 0.7 MB and get rid of a NOTE about the installed package size 
(on my local Linux machine).

Dirk suggests that one could conditionally do this in the Makevars file 
if the strip tool is available (typically the case on Linux). Does 
anybody know what CRAN's take is on this?

Cheers,
Ege

[1]: 
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2017/08/14/#009_compact_shared_libraries
Dirk Eddelbuettel
#
On 31 October 2017 at 15:02, Ege Rubak wrote:
| Based on Dirk's blog post [1] about stripping debug information from the 
| shared object of my package `s2` I reduced the shared object file size 
| from 7 to 0.7 MB and get rid of a NOTE about the installed package size 
| (on my local Linux machine).
| 
| Dirk suggests that one could conditionally do this in the Makevars file 
| if the strip tool is available (typically the case on Linux). Does 
| anybody know what CRAN's take is on this?

The "BDR Doctrine" still stands: no non-portable code in src/Makevars.

So the best I found (as a "live test") was this in RcppClassic (and I indent
what is one long line)

     @if test -e "/usr/bin/strip" & \
         test -e "/bin/uname" & \
         [[ `uname` == "Linux" ]]; then \
         /usr/bin/strip --strip-unneeded $(USERLIB); \
     fi

But but but ... this is in a package which already has an expanded
src/Makevars.  For the simple default one ... I have found nothing better
than a _purely local_ settings in ~/.R/Makevars:

  SHLIB_CXXLDFLAGS = -Wl,-S -shared
  SHLIB_CXX11LDFLAGS = -Wl,-S -shared
  SHLIB_CXX14LDFLAGS = -Wl,-S -shared
  SHLIB_FCLDFLAGS = -Wl,-S -shared
  SHLIB_LDFLAGS = -Wl,-S -shared

as described in the first follow-up to the link you quoted:

   http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2017/08/14#009_compact_shared_libraries

It is somewhat sad that we cannot portably set this for packages (at least
not as far as I know), and equally sad that we cannot augment the setting in
$(RHOME)/etc/Makeconf from inside a running R session.

Also see the second follow-up to the link you posted; the file size changes
are nothing short of staggering.

  http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2017/08/20#010_stripping_shared_libraries

Dirk   

| 
| Cheers,
| Ege
| 
| [1]: 
| http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2017/08/14/#009_compact_shared_libraries
| 
| -- 
| Ege Rubak, Associate Professor,
| Department of Mathematical Sciences, Aalborg University
| Skjernvej 4A, 9220 Aalborg East, Denmark
| Phone: (+45)99408861
| Mobile: (+45)30230252
| Email: rubak at math.aau.dk
| 
| ______________________________________________
| R-package-devel at r-project.org mailing list
| https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel