Trimming the fat from PerlAPP

2old4this has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

To the Monks(or anyone who would help me),

I have finally gotten my TK script working correctly, begged the Company's purchase of the Perl Dev Kit and all the while making grand claims that a Perl script executing in standalone executable form would be the most cost effective solution in money and manhours.

I spit out a semi busy little script that loads the following:

use Crypt::TripleDES;
use integer;
use Tk;
use Tk::Balloon;
use Tk::BrowseEntry;
use Tk::NoteBook;
use Tk::Pane;
use Win32;
use Win32::TieRegistry
[download]

The bundled "APP" turned out to be 3.5MB!
I knew that there would be overhead but was still a little surprised.

I later managed to cut it down to 1.99MB by removing Encode's CN, JP, KR & TW pm's but I'm wondering if I can trim even more unneeded libs to give the "APP" a more waifish look on the harddrive.

I am looking at more encodes and unicodes, but am holding everything suspect. Any suggestions?

V/R
2Old

Comment on Trimming the fat from PerlAPP Download Code

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Re: Trimming the fat from PerlAPP by Joost (Canon) on Oct 24, 2004 at 15:42 UTC
You could try `print join("\n",keys %INC);` [download] to give you a list of all used/required files - try removing more. Alternatively, try PAR's pp command - AFAIK it should only include needed modules in the resulting executable - and it's zipped. "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Trimming the fat from PerlAPP by tachyon (Chancellor) on Oct 25, 2004 at 00:04 UTC
most cost effective solution in money and manhours.....the bundled "APP" turned out to be 3.5MB! So you want fast and easy to develop with a miniscule binary I suppose? Sadly this won't happen. The perl binary itself is at least 650K. The basic Tk dll is 450K so there is 1.1 MB (that won't compress) before you even draw breath. You can add at another 300K just for the associated source code of Dynaloader, Crypt, Tk, and Win32 which is now 1.4MB If you get the impression it is unlikely to fit on a floppy you are right but unless you need it to fit on a floppy why worry? cheers tachyon	[reply]
Re^2: Trimming the fat from PerlAPP by 2old4this (Initiate) on Oct 25, 2004 at 01:01 UTC
Tachyon, You're right, I am getting a little greedy... I'll do some minor messing around with unicode and put it to bed. V/R 2Old	[reply]
Re: Trimming the fat from PerlAPP by ldln (Pilgrim) on Oct 25, 2004 at 00:21 UTC
If you use the --nocompress option with perlapp and instead compress the .exe with more efficient packer, like UPX, you can cut off up to ~500kb on the finished .exe-file - depending on the size of your app.	[reply]