Hi,
I want to know what is meant by a code footprint. I tried googling but all of them have explanations that I was really not able to understand. Can anyone please tell me what is means? How is it important and how can it be used(if at all it can be used)?
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
jumbowat
It could mean the amount or style of code.
Was it used in a particular sentence or paragraph?
Here is a quote from the book entitled C++ Footprint and Performance Optimization
What Is Footprint?
Strictly speaking, footprint is a spatial measurement term. The footprint of a desktop computer, for
example, is about 40´40 centimeters (about 16´16 inches); that is the desk space it occupies. When
talking about software, however, footprint can best be described as the amount of memory an object
(a program, data structure, or task, for example) needs to function properly. This memory can be
strictly internal ROM or RAM, but it is also possible that footprint requirements necessitate the use
of external memory, for example, for temporary data storage. Refer to Chapter 2 for more informa-
tion.
Where executable programs are concerned, different kinds of footprint sizes can be identified, as
explained in the following sections.
Storage Requirements
This is the amount of memory needed when the program is inactive, the footprint of the storage,
and the memory required to store the executable file and the data files it needs/has acquired. From
the perspective of the user, the storage requirement is simply the amount of space needed to store
the program. During development, however, the story can be rather more complicated. When de-
velopment is not done on the machines that are the eventual targets for running the program, storage
calculations become a lot more involved. Refer to "How to Measure Footprint Size" for more infor-
mation.
Runtime Memory Requirements
This is the amount of memory needed while the program is being executed. This footprint can differ
from the storage footprint for several reasons. For example, the program might not need all the
executable code at once, the program will probably use working memory for temporary data storage,
and so on. Moreover, the memory used during startup and execution will rarely equal that of the
stored files, especially larger programs, which are those made up of more than just a single exe-
cutable file. Although most often more memory is needed during execution, as one might expect, it
is equally possible that a program in fact uses less memory.
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