[fpc-pascal] source file size ?

[Marco van de Voort]

> Tony Pelton wrote:
> > i wanted to ask a question, before i spend time going down a road to
> > implement it.
> > 
> > are there any know limits on how big a source file can be for the FPC compiler ?
> > 
> > i was thinking about experimenting with "code generating" a source
> > file that would become a memory resident database of sorts.
> > 
> > this would make my application, implemented as a shared library
> > "plugin" quite fast, and would potentially simplify the distribution
> > of my shared library to my user base.
> > 
> > are there any thoughts on having a source file that might be megabytes
> > in size that is basically just structured data implemented as source ?
> 
> I think there are no hard limits on the source size. But you have to 
> keep in mind that procedures (and maybe data) cannot become infinitely 
> long, generating fast object code for them would be too complicated.

Correct, and extremely long sourcefiles will also use lots of memory, so
there is also a more practical limit there.
 
IIRC the codegenerator was tested using 6MB large procedures, if you go over
a few MBs per procedure you might get into trouble.