HAhaberman·Dec 31, 2020
I used my tool Bloaty, which parses the ELF and DWARF information in the binary: https://github.com/google/bloaty
In Don't Use Protobuf for Telemetrygoogle
bloaty
C++2016–2026
google / bloaty
bloaty
Bloaty: a size profiler for binaries
20Distinct people
31Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
5.6KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Bloaty: a size profiler for binaries
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
Since we're talking about ELF binaries, let me drop a link for my favorite size profiler (that is compatible with ELF and other formats): Bloaty McBloatface.…
fnayr used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 8:03:49 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year31 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2016-11-08 19:50:38 UTC to 2026-01-06 20:02:22 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 4 | 3 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
7 sourcesBloaty McBloatface: a size profiler for binaries
1 points · Open discussionSince we're talking about ELF binaries, let me drop a link for my favorite size profiler (that is compatible with ELF and other formats):
Bloaty McBloatface.
https://github.com/google/bloaty
In What's in a Linux Executable?Bloaty McBloatface: a size profiler for binaries
1 points · Open discussionBloaty McBloatface: a size profiler for binaries
2 points · Open discussionI just ran Bloaty (https://github.com/google/bloaty) on /usr/bin/touch from Catalina, and I got this:
$ bloaty `which touch` -d segments,sections --domain=file
FILE SIZE
---------------
55.1% 19.6Ki __LINKEDIT
91.7% 18.0Ki Code Signature
2.7% 544 Symbol Table
1.9% 376 Lazy Binding Info
1.6% 328 String Table
1.2% 232 Indirect Symbol Table
0.6% 112 Binding Info
0.2% 32 Export Info
0.1% 24 Function Start Addresses
0.0% 8 Rebase Info
0.0% 8 Table of Non-instructions
0.0% 0 [__LINKEDIT]
22.2% 7.90Ki __TEXT
35.0% 2.77Ki __TEXT,__text
33.6% 2.65Ki [__TEXT]
17.2% 1.36Ki [Mach-O Headers]
4.2% 339 __TEX
Read the rest
T,__cstring
3.4% 274 __TEXT,__const
3.3% 266 __TEXT,__stub_helper
1.9% 150 __TEXT,__stubs
1.5% 120 __TEXT,__unwind_info
11.2% 4.00Ki __DATA
94.9% 3.80Ki [__DATA]
4.9% 200 __DATA,__la_symbol_ptr
0.2% 8 __DATA,__data
11.2% 4.00Ki __DATA_CONST
98.4% 3.94Ki [__DATA_CONST]
1.6% 64 __DATA_CONST,__got
0.3% 104 [Mach-O Headers]
100.0% 35.6Ki TOTAL
So 2.77Ki of actual code in "__TEXT,__text".
Those [__TEXT], [__DATA], and [__DATA_CONST] sections are the part that is lost to padding, so 10.4Ki or so.
Disclosure: I am the author of Bloaty.