Binary Size Profiling

The bloaty_compare_master build target allows you to get a better understanding of the impact of changes on code size. When it is used, the toolchain downloads the latest successful master build of a particular firmware and compares it to the local build (using the bloaty size profiler for binaries).

TIP

This can help analyse changes that (may) cause px4_fmu-v2_default to hit the 1MB flash limit.

Bloaty must be in your path and found at cmake configure time. The PX4 docker files install bloaty as shown:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/google/bloaty.git /tmp/bloaty \
    && cd /tmp/bloaty && cmake -GNinja . && ninja bloaty && cp bloaty /usr/local/bin/ \
    && rm -rf /tmp/*

The example below shows how you might see the impact of removing the mpu9250 driver from px4_fmu-v2_default. First it locally sets up a build without the driver:

 % git diff
diff --git a/boards/px4/fmu-v2/default.px4board b/boards/px4/fmu-v2/default.px4board
index 40d7778..2ce7972 100644
--- a/boards/px4/fmu-v2/default.px4board
+++ b/boards/px4/fmu-v2/default.px4board
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
-               CONFIG_DRIVERS_IMU_INVENSENSE_MPU9250=y
+               CONFIG_DRIVERS_IMU_INVENSENSE_MPU9250=n

Then use the make target, specifying the target build to compare (px4_fmu-v2_default in this case):

% make px4_fmu-v2_default bloaty_compare_master
...
...
...
     VM SIZE                                                                                        FILE SIZE
 --------------                                                                                  --------------
  [DEL]     -52 MPU9250::check_null_data(unsigned int*, unsigned char)                               -52  [DEL]
  [DEL]     -52 MPU9250::test_error()                                                                -52  [DEL]
  [DEL]     -52 MPU9250_gyro::MPU9250_gyro(MPU9250*, char const*)                                    -52  [DEL]
  [DEL]     -56 mpu9250::info(MPU9250_BUS)                                                           -56  [DEL]
  [DEL]     -56 mpu9250::regdump(MPU9250_BUS)                                                        -56  [DEL]
...                                        -336  [DEL]
  [DEL]    -344 MPU9250_mag::_measure(ak8963_regs)                                                  -344  [DEL]
  [DEL]    -684 MPU9250::MPU9250(device::Device*, device::Device*, char const*, char const*, cha    -684  [DEL]
  [DEL]    -684 MPU9250::init()                                                                     -684  [DEL]
  [DEL]   -1000 MPU9250::measure()                                                                 -1000  [DEL]
 -41.3%   -1011 [43 Others]                                                                        -1011 -41.3%
  -1.0% -1.05Ki [Unmapped]                                                                       +24.2Ki  +0.2%
  -1.0% -10.3Ki TOTAL                                                                            +14.9Ki  +0.1%

This shows that removing mpu9250 from px4_fmu-v2_default would save 10.3 kB of flash. It also shows the sizes of different pieces of the mpu9250 driver.