Chapter 3 Reducing Program Size with P-Code

Most compilers translate programs into machine code that your computer can execute directly. With Microsoft C/C++, you can compile your program into an alternate form of code called “p-code.” P-code produces much smaller programs than machine code, but your machine cannot execute them directly. Instead, programs compiled into p-code are executed by a run-time interpreter, which is a small program incorporated into your executable (.EXE) file. As a result, p-code programs are slower than machine-code programs. They are meant to be used when size is more important than speed. You can also compile selected portions of your program into p-code and compile the rest into machine code to get a better combination of size and speed.

This chapter describes:

How to compile your programs into p-code.

How p-code works.

How to optimize your p-code program.

How to fine-tune p-code optimization.

For information about debugging code programs, see Chapter 10, “Special Topics,” in the Environment and Tools manual.