Why is the compiled executable file so large?

People usually ask this question when they compile a simple program which uses iostreams. The first thing you can do is to add -s to Project Options - Parameters - Linker, but the result may be still too large for your taste. In this case, either try to live with it (it actually doesn't matter so much!), or avoid iostreams (use cstdio), or use another compiler. Also note that there are some exe compressors on the net, e.g. upx.

The reason why iostream increases the size so much is that the linker links entire object files (from inside of libraries) if they contain at least one necessary reference, and the library for iostream is not well separated into small object files. Also, the linker should be able to link only certain sections of the object files (see "--gc-sections"), but this particular feature doesn't work yet on the mingw target (and that affects all libraries and object files).

Tomado de:  Adrian Sandor www14.brinkster.com