String Table Compression

String tables are compressed by the link-editor by removing duplicate entries, together with tail substrings. This compression can significantly reduce the size of any string tables. For example, a compressed .dynstr table results in a smaller text segment and hence reduced runtime paging activity. Because of these benefits, string table compression is enabled by default.

Objects that contribute a very large number of symbols can increase the link-edit time due to the string table compression. To avoid this cost during development use the link-editors -z nocompstrtab option. Any string table compression performed during a link-edit can be displayed using the link-editors debugging tokens -D strtab,detail.