wxruby users - Feb 2010 - Suggestions to reduce binary size, make loading faster

I found wxruby2.so in mingw release a bit large (18M), it is smaller
(~15M) after stripping symbols. I learned this from
http://wiki.wxwidgets.org/Reducing_Executable_Size . The command line
is:

    strip --strip-all wxruby2.so

But I don''t know whether there is a problem with stripping, at least my
app still runs well with the stripped one.

---

The loading of wxruby is not very fast too(~ 1.3s on my machine). After
a small profile, I found the following code in wx.rb the bottle-neck:

    require ''wx/classes/evthandler.rb''
    class_files = File.join( File.dirname(__FILE__), ''wx'',
''classes'',
''*.rb'')
    Dir.glob(class_files) do | class_file |
      require ''wx/classes/'' + class_file[/\w+\.rb$/]
    end

A simple improvement is to make wx/classes/*.rb into one.
I wrote the following script, placed it under wx/, then run it to
generate a new classes.rb containing most classes under wx/classes/

    data = []
    (Dir.glob(''classes/*.rb'') - [
      ''classes/evthandler.rb'',
      ''classes/simplehelpprovider.rb'',
      ''classes/bitmap.rb''
    ]).each do |f|
      data.push File.read f
    end
    File.open ''classes.rb'', ''w'' do |f|
      f.puts data.join "\n"
    end

Then I changed the classes loading section in wx.rb with:

    require ''wx/classes/evthandler.rb''
    require ''wx/classes.rb''

After this modification, the loading time seems shorter (reduced to ~
0.4s on my machine).
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Hi Lui,

2010/2/4 Lui Kore <lists at ruby-forum.com>:
> I found wxruby2.so in mingw release a bit large (18M), it is smaller
> (~15M) after stripping symbols. I learned this from
> http://wiki.wxwidgets.org/Reducing_Executable_Size . The command line
> is:
>
> ? ?strip --strip-all wxruby2.so
We already use strip -x.
But strip --strip-all seems to reduce the size a little more.
I''ll try and see if there is no problem.
> The loading of wxruby is not very fast too(~ 1.3s on my machine). After
> a small profile, I found the following code in wx.rb the bottle-neck:
>
> ? ?require ''wx/classes/evthandler.rb''
> ? ?class_files = File.join( File.dirname(__FILE__), ''wx'',
''classes'',
> ''*.rb'')
> ? ?Dir.glob(class_files) do | class_file |
> ? ? ?require ''wx/classes/'' + class_file[/\w+\.rb$/]
> ? ?end
>
> A simple improvement is to make wx/classes/*.rb into one.
> I wrote the following script, placed it under wx/, then run it to
> generate a new classes.rb containing most classes under wx/classes/
Interesting. I''ll take a look at it.

Cheers.
Chauk-Mean.

Hi Lui,

2010/2/4 Lui Kore <lists at ruby-forum.com>:
> The loading of wxruby is not very fast too(~ 1.3s on my machine). After
> a small profile, I found the following code in wx.rb the bottle-neck:
>
> ? ?require ''wx/classes/evthandler.rb''
> ? ?class_files = File.join( File.dirname(__FILE__), ''wx'',
''classes'',
> ''*.rb'')
> ? ?Dir.glob(class_files) do | class_file |
> ? ? ?require ''wx/classes/'' + class_file[/\w+\.rb$/]
> ? ?end
>
> A simple improvement is to make wx/classes/*.rb into one.
> I wrote the following script, placed it under wx/, then run it to
> generate a new classes.rb containing most classes under wx/classes/
>
Sorry for such a long delay ...
I''ve tested your suggestion and indeed the loading is a bit faster.
But the improvement is only about 10-11% on my system according to a
Benchmark.measure of a require ''wx''.

I don''t know yet if it is worth adding a rake task for generating the
classes.rb automatically even if I''ve already written it.

Does anybody has an opinion on the subject ?

Cheers.
Chauk-Mean.