Delphi XE5 dll and exe filesize comparing to XE2

Question

I have recently purchased XE5 and migrated from XE2. I have tried to compile a dll. With XE2 this dll filesize is 400KB but with XE5 it is 1.1MB. Also Executable file sizes are higher. I am compiling exactly the same project.

So does anyone know what causes that much high file size? You may say the size is not that important these days but actually it is for me.

Answer 1

XE5 has some RTL and VCL features and changes that XE2 is lacking. That is the usual growth that we see with every Delphi version. And from XE2 to XE5 you have XE3 and XE4 between. That makes a difference of 3 Delphi versions.

Another size increasing change is the move from plain TList to the generic TList< T >. Now instead of just the code for TList you have the code for TList< TCollectionItem >, TList< TComponent >, TList< TObject >, TList< TAction >, ... They all generate the exact same code, because TList< T > can't do much with T that differs from T=TObject, but the compiler doesn't collapse them into one code base. And the generic TList< T > brings a lot more code with it than TList.