Binary size is enormous

[rgov]

I built ros1_bridge (from the foxy branch) with a total of 250 message definitions, many of them custom but none particularly complex. The command to build was:

RUN /bin/bash -c " \
    source /opt/ros/${ROS1_DISTRO}/setup.bash && \
    source /opt/ros/${ROS2_DISTRO}/setup.bash && \
    source /app/install/setup.bash && \
    source /ros2_msgs_ws/install/local_setup.bash && \
    cd /bridge_ws && \
    MAKEFLAGS=-j1 colcon build \
        --packages-select ros1_bridge \
        --cmake-force-configure \
        --event-handlers console_cohesion+ \
    "

This produced the file ros1_bridge/lib/libros1_bridge.so which weighs in at 392 MB. That's 1.6 MB per message type.

It seems like there is a problem with the amount of code being generated. Adding --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release shrinks it down to 82 MB which is a lot better in comparison, but still seems large.