C/C++ Binaries double in size for gcc-4.8.5 compared to gcc-4.4.7

[Jonathan Wakely]

On 19 September 2017 at 10:08, Mason wrote:
> On 19/09/2017 06:07, shagun wrote:
>
>> We recently noticed that the size of binaries compiled with the newer GCC
>> (4.8.5) as part of Centos 7 OS is much bigger.
>
> Please note that 4.8 was released in 2013 and is no longer supported
> upstream, as far as I understand.

Correct.

>> Further digging revealed that
>> anything compiled on centos 7 machine has a bigger binary size with at least
>> 20-30% increase and sometimes double or more.
>
> Why is that a problem? Do you see a performance regression?
>
> If the increase comes from the text segment, sometimes bigger code
> runs faster (think unrolling loops). If the increase comes from
> debug segments, does it matter at all? (You can strip unnecessary
> information from the binary.)

Yes, in the absence of any useful information, my guess is the
increase is due to improved debug info in the newer GCC.