#BLOAT metastatement

Purpose

Artificially inflate the disk image size of a compiled program.

Syntax

#BLOAT size_expression

Remarks

#BLOAT allows the creation of artificially bloated program files on disk, in order to match or exceed that generated by competing "BloatWare" compilers.  #BLOAT does not affect the memory image size (running size) of a compiled program.

size_expression

The size_expression parameter is a simple Long-integer expression that specifies the total desired size of the compiled programs disk image, but is ignored if it is smaller than the actual program size.  #BLOAT uses sections of the actual compiled code to fill and obfuscate the portion added to the file.

While #BLOAT adds no true merit to the technical efficiency of the compiled code, there are a number of reasons for its use, including:

1. To allow "BloatWare" programmers to feel more comfortable when using PowerBASIC.

2. To impress project leaders/managers with the volume of executable code created.

3. To allay the fears of uninformed customers who may mistakenly infer that "such tiny programs couldn't possibly do everything that..."

4. To make certain versions of a program more readily identifiable simply by examining the size of the file on disk.

5. To improve convolution of the contents of the executable disk image, because the bloat region appears to contain executable code.

See also

#COMPILE EXE, #OPTIMIZE

Example

#BLOAT 1024 * 1024 * 4  ' Create a 4 MB EXE file