Crunchie v0.96 released

Crunchie is a Utility written in BASIC to crunch BASIC files, written by the late Steve Drain and first released in 2018. It was updated by him until v0.93 in April 2021, and will:

• delete comments, blank lines, empty statements and spaces
• shorten variable, procedure and function names
• convert SWI names after SYS/SWI to numbers
• convert ASC with literal strings to numbers
• convert constant variables to literal values
• remove debugging statements
• remove unwanted routines
• concatenate lines
• crunch multiple library files to same values
• append crunched libraries to the main program

An updated Crunchie v0.96 has now been released, based on v0.93. The main changes are…

• Fixed several simple errors.
• Removed duplicated or unused code and files.
• Corrected Analysis list for Literals and source files.
• Improved some error messages.
• Removed assumption that programs and Libraries start with REM.
• Avoided redundant colons at start/end of line.
• Moved all available releases and recent changes to RISC OS Git.

Feedback of cases it cannot handle, or suggestions for improvements, may provoke further releases.

Many may question whether a BASIC cruncher is of any use. I would suggest that for large programs it can be very useful. Crunchie takes 6 seconds to process a 1.5GB program spread over 43 source files, and the 76% reduction gives real benefits in size and performance.

After Steve sadly died in December 2022, it was his wish that his Kappa website and software remained available, and there is a copy of his website as part of my own at
http://www.avisoft.f9.co.uk/
https://homepages.force9.net/avisoft/
Crunchie v0.96 is available from there.

Can I ask that if you do use a cruncher, and it’s not a closed source application which you need to obfuscate, that you also include the uncrunched code inside the application directory. It makes it much easier to find and report bugs, and also if, godforbid, you move on to developing in that big cloud in the sky, it’s possible for someone else to continue your legacy down below.

Agreed … but the same plea should be made that source is available for C programs, Assembler programs, etc.
Crunchie 0.96 is itself crunched, but both BASIC and BASICTxt versions of the source are included.

Thank you, Martin. It’s commendable how you have kept Steve’s memory and contributions alive; it is much appreciated.

Thanks again for this release of Crunchie.

Quick question, since Photodesk uses a program like this that (IIRC) is 26bit only, can it also save as absolute output? Or simply a crunched piece of BASIC?

The main reason that I got involved in Crunchie was that I previously used a 26bit program, and there was no other 32bit app that worked sufficiently well.
But Steve’s aim for Crunchie was performance, not obfuscation, so it simply outputs crunched BASIC. Perhaps there is a 32bit BASIC to Absolute application?

can it also save as absolute output?

Please don’t. It’s a waste of time because it is usually so easy to bypass ¹ and if it uses any code that a future processor might object to ², it’ll stop working.

Security by obfuscation just annoys.

Or simply a crunched piece of BASIC?

Crunching, on the other hand, is logical as there are numerous tricks to make a BASIC program a little bit faster (like using SWI numbers instead of names, saves the name lookup each time, etc etc etc).

¹ Unsqueeze if compressed, drop it into an editor, change the BASIC -quit to BASIC -load, run, SAVE, job done. It’s really not worth the hassle is it?

² The number of times I’ve had to do the above to extract a 26/32 agnostic BASIC program from a 26-bit only wrapper. 😡