Combined Library Much Larger than Components

MS-DOS                            | OS/2

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft LIB for MS-DOS, versions 3.1, 3.11, 3.17, 3.18, 3.2, 3.20.010, 3.31, and 3.4
• Microsoft LIB for OS/2, versions 3.1, 3.11, 3.17, 3.2

SUMMARY

If you use LIB.EXE to combine your libraries with a third-party library, the resultant library may be much larger than expected. For example:

   LIB1.LIB    5K   bytes
   LIB2.LIB    250K bytes

   LIB1.LIB + LIB2.LIB  = 305K bytes

MORE INFORMATION

This size difference may be the result of different page sizes among the libraries being combined. The page size of a library affects the alignment of modules stored in the library. When libraries with different page sizes are combined, the resultant library uses the largest page size from the constituent libraries. Thus, the actual increase in file size represents wasted space between modules in the library. To reduce the amount of wasted space, you should specify a smaller page size for the new library. This may be accomplished by using the library manager as follows:

   LIB BIG.LIB /PAGESIZE:16;

As indicated in the library manager documentation, the page size must be an integer power of 2 from 16 to 32,768 bytes.