[TUHS] tool (that wnj wrote?) that reduced the data segment size?

[Dave Horsfall]

On Fri, 27 Nov 2015, Larry McVoy wrote:

> I've gotten sucked into an embedded system project and they are running 
> out of memory.  I have a vague memory of some sort of tool that I think 
> Bill Joy wrote (or maybe he told me about it) that would do some magic 
> processing of all the string constants and somehow it de-dupped the 
> space.
> 
> Though now that I'm typing this that doesn't seem possible.  Does this 
> ring a bell with anyone?  I'm sure it was for the PDP 11 port.

I think you're referring to an abomination called "xstrings" (or "xstr"?).

It was described by a colleague of mine as "about as subtle as a car 
crash"; it worked by comparing strings at compilation time, even unto the 
tails of said strings.

Woe betide the user if any string was changed at run time...

It ranks right up there with nargs() as What Not To Do.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."