Re: [Boost-users] Boost in embedded systems

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-02-19 11:43:44

Peter Poulsen wrote:
> I know this sounds insane, but our developers are very happy with boost (who can
> blame them :-)), and want to have boost available on our embedded systems. We only
> have 64 mb of flash memory available for the entire system (OS, hardware monitoring
> and applications) and I simply cannot get boost down to a reasonable size. Am I
> trying to do an impossible task, or can somebody give me some good advice on how to
> build boost so it has a more reasonable size?

It's a little difficult to respond to this since a big percentage of Boost is 
'header only' and there's no runtime size cost until someone uses a library. 
And then that cost tends to be 'built-in' to the application that is using a 
particular library.  So measuring the runtime footprint created by Boost is a 
somewhat difficult.  That said, there's good indications from posts on the 
lists that other embedded developers have successfully used parts of Boost in 
projects.

> Of course what should be done is removing some of the features, and I can probably
> negotiate with developers about what features we can provide and which have to go.
> Which one should I try to get rid of first?

I'd make a list of libraries they are actually using -- with special attention 
to the 'built' libraries: filesystem, signals, date-time (although this one 
can be mostly inline), program-options, serialization, etc.  These are the 
only ones that have a 'fixed cost of use' which might be cut-down by removing 
'unused features' from the library.  Anyway, this list would give you a good 
idea of which parts you really need.

Jeff