Re: RFC: [PATCH] build: Option for building all tools in a single binary

[Eric Blake]

On 06/08/2014 04:33 AM, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 06/07/2014 09:37 PM, Alex Deymo wrote:
>> Add the --enable-single-binary option to the configure file. When
>> enabled, this option builds a single binary file with all the
>> selected tools in it. Which tools gets executed depends on the value
>> of argv[0] which is intended to use together with symlinks to the
>> single program.
>>

> 
> This seems like a very useful option, thanks!
> Yes given that there are around 100 utils,
> amalgamation like this reduces overhead significantly.

Isn't that precisely the premise of busybox?

I'm also slightly worried about the ramifications.  For example, sort is
currently multithreaded, and therefore must take care that use of stdio
functionality is properly locked between threads.  Meanwhile, most other
utilities are single-threaded, and can optimize to use unlocked stdio
functions for speed because there is no other thread competing for
locks.  But if combined into a single binary, then that one binary will
be multi-threaded, and you may lose the performance benefit of
specifically compiling other apps to be single-threaded.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature