Why are beam files so large?

[Joe Armstrong]

> A BEAM file now contains several structured sections. You can run
> erlc like
> 
>   % erlc +compressed +no_debug_info ........
> 
> to get them alot smaller. There are still sections left that
> can be removed, I don't know how. Check out the sections and
> the sizes with
> 
>   1> beam_lib:info("foo.beam").
>   [{file,"foo.beam"},
>    {module,foo},
>    {chunks,[{"Atom",20,67},
>             {"Code",96,181},
>             {"StrT",288,31},
>             {"ImpT",328,28},
>             {"ExpT",364,52},
>             {"LocT",424,4},
>             {"Attr",436,81},
>             {"CInf",528,202},
>             {"Abst",740,492}]}]
> 
> kent
> 

This is very interesting ....

Pretty nifty: Lets give it a whirl:
        
        > erlc packer.crl
        > ls -l packer.beam 
        -rw-r--r--    1 joe      staff        1868 Dec  7 09:41
        
        1> beam_lib:info("backer.beam").
        [{file,"packer.beam"},
         {module,packer},
         {chunks,[{"Atom",20,210},
                  {"Code",240,354},
                  {"StrT",604,47},
                  {"ImpT",660,136},
                  {"ExpT",804,52},
                  {"LocT",864,28},
                  {"Attr",900,40},
                  {"CInf",948,180},
                  {"Abst",1136,729}]}]

So far so good
        
        > erlc +compressed +no_debug_info packer.erl
        > ls -l packer.beam 
        -rw-r--r--    1 joe      staff         830 Dec  7 09:42

Wow - a lot smaller, but ...
        
        >erl
        Erlang (BEAM) emulator version 5.0.1.1 [source]
        
        Eshell V5.0.1.1  (abort with ^G)
        1> beam_lib:info("packer.beam"). 
        {error,beam_lib,{missing_chunk,"packer.beam","FOR1"}}

Questions:

	1) How can I do the +compressed etc. stuff from Erlang i.e.  not the shell

	     compile:file("foo", [compressed]). 

         Didn't work

	2) Can I write "strip" that takes a module compiled with default
           options and away debug info and compresses the results ???

  /Joe 
--
Joe Armstrong,                       
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