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

[lm@mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)]

On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 10:44:58AM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> 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"?).

Yup, that's it.  Cool, thanks.

> 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...

I get it.  I also get that I have 32KB of RAM and I'm down to my last 1.2KB.

--lm