Splitting applications into small modules is critical to building a manageable application, but most development systems only optimize code within a module. HiTech Software's new crop of PICC-18 PRO C compilers and linkers cross this boundary and do optimization by looking at the entire program. This can be especially critical for optimizations like dead code elimination, register parameters, and inlining. It allows the system to use information in one module to optimize how another is used.
The resulting optimization when looking at the whole program can be significant. Hi-Tech's approach can often cut a program's size by 50%. Often, this is the result of leaving out unnecessary code. For example, the commonly used print function can format text for everything from characters to double-precision floating point. Significant savings are possible if the latter isn't required. Hi-Tech's approach can detect what parameters are used and eliminate the unneeded code. Pricing starts at $1195.