Re: "size" of relocatable objects

[Nick Clifton <nickc at redhat dot com>]

Hi Alan,

> Someone at IBM noticed that "size" ignores common variables in
> relocatable object files, and wondered whether we could enhance "size"
> to show them.  Well, of course we can, but should we?  Opinions?

Hmmm, the size of common variables in an object file is not actually 
fixed, right ?  (Well, when compared to size of the same variable in a 
fully linked executable).  So including their size is a little bit 
disingenuous.  But on the other hand, they do contribute to the overall 
size of the data in the resulting executable, so omitting them is just 
as bad.  Hmmm.

> I'm inclined to say "just use awk".
>
> objdump -t some_file.o | grep '\*COM\*' | \
>   awk '{ com += strtonum ("0x" $1) } END { print com; }'

But then you need an enhanced script to combine this with the output of 
size so that you can get a size-that-includes-COM-variables.

I think that adding a new switch would be reasonable.

Cheers
  Nick