Re: [Boost-users] Boost in embedded systems

From: Hughes, James (jhughes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-02-19 11:54:54

> -----Original Message-----
> From: boost-users-bounces_at_[hidden] 
> [mailto:boost-users-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Jeff Garland
> Sent: 19 February 2007 16:44
> To: boost-users_at_[hidden]
> Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Boost in embedded systems
> 
> 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.
>

Certainly not insane - embedded system would benefit perhaps more from
boost reviewed code than desktops as they tend to be more mission
critical. We are currently in development, and do as Jeff says - header
only stuff is irrelevant, and we only copy libraries that we use to the
embedded system (Serialisation, filesystem). There are many flavours of
library built (Debug, multithreaded, wide char etc) - you will only need
one of them.
 
> > 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
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> 

James

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