HelloWorld binary size increased a lot in recent Zig versions

[hronro]

Zig Version

0.13.0

Steps to Reproduce and Observed Behavior

Say we want to build a very simple HelloWorld program in x86_64 Linux:

const std = @import("std");

pub fn main() !void {
    std.debug.print("Hello World\n", .{});
}

Let's try to build them in different versions of Zig with different modes (all of them have enabled exe.strip = true; in build.zig), and here are the binary sizes of them:

Zig Version	ReleaseFast	ReleaseSmall
0.9.1	4.6K	4.6K
0.10.1	13K	8.5K
0.11.0	13K	8.7K
0.12.1	11K	9.0K
0.13.0	13K	13K

Expected Behavior

Binary size should not increase much compared to v0.9.1, at least in ReleaseSmall mode.

[linusg]

Possibly related: #20468

[dotdot0]

Can I work on this one?

[pavelverigo]

Currently on 0.14.0-dev.1002+71a27ebd8:

ReleaseFast	ReleaseSmall
5.1K	3.6K

[ar-qun]

Maybe it would make sense to check the binary size as part of regression testing?

[ghost]

Seems to have improved a lot?

~$ cat x.zig
const std = @import("std");

pub fn main() !void {
    std.debug.print("Hello World\n", .{});
}
~$ zig build-exe x.zig -target x86_64-linux -OReleaseSmall && wc -c x
5232 x

Oh https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/20711#issuecomment-2282244798 already said this

Well, I think this can be closed.