https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=95348
--- Comment #24 from qinzhao at gcc dot gnu.org --- with the patch added to gcc11, I tested it with the small testing case, and got the following data: ******without the patch: qinzhao@gcc14:~/Bugs/profile/small_gcc/gcc_prof_dir/13248$ ls -l -rw-r--r-- 1 qinzhao qinzhao 100 Jun 2 19:02 #home#qinzhao#Bugs#profile#small_gcc#five.gcda -rw-r--r-- 1 qinzhao qinzhao 184 Jun 2 19:02 #home#qinzhao#Bugs#profile#small_gcc#lib.gcda -rw-r--r-- 1 qinzhao qinzhao 100 Jun 2 19:02 #home#qinzhao#Bugs#profile#small_gcc#ten.gcda ******with the patch: qinzhao@gcc14:~/Bugs/profile/small_gcc/gcc_prof_dir/20668$ ls -l -rw-r--r-- 1 qinzhao qinzhao 68 Jun 2 19:34 #home#qinzhao#Bugs#profile#small_gcc#five.gcda -rw-r--r-- 1 qinzhao qinzhao 144 Jun 2 19:34 #home#qinzhao#Bugs#profile#small_gcc#lib.gcda -rw-r--r-- 1 qinzhao qinzhao 100 Jun 2 19:34 #home#qinzhao#Bugs#profile#small_gcc#ten.gcda from the above data, we can see: 1. there are size reduction for "five.c" and "lib.c" as expected. 2. However, we still keep the *.gcda file for five.c even though there is no any meaningful data in this file. I will try to get more data on our real application. one question: why not just delete the entire records whose counter is zero and delete the entire file whose counter is zero?