Compiled sketch vs text file size OK,so this is my first program written via the Tinkercad utility. I have saved the program as a text file, and it equates to about 22K.

My simple question is, when uploaded / compiled to the actual board, is the size increased or decreased? I plan to use the Nano (32K) If it shrinks or stays roughly the same, I should be OK. However,if it 'bloats' due to extra C code ...

** As someone used to working with sub routines, arrays and variables, found it a bit of a hassle that everything has to be in one loop, only conditional statement breaking the flow - leastin TinkerCAD. And when you want to control 8 LED outputs, having to switch each one on and off via a digital write line. For example, the four output lines below:

11001100
01100110
00110011
10011001


... needs 32 digital write commands !! (And whilst the above is 4 lines, there are nearer 150 similar lines in final code, hence it's size)

The way I wrote it using ths above utility was something like:

for(counter=0; counter&lt;4; counter){
if (counter==0){
    digitalWrite(2, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(3, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(4, LOW);
    digitalWrite(5, LOW);
    digitalWrite(6, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(7, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(8, LOW);
    digitalWrite(9, LOW);
  }
if (counter==1){
    digitalWrite(2, LOW);
    digitalWrite(3, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(4, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(5, LOW);
    digitalWrite(6, LOW);
    digitalWrite(7, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(8, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(9, LOW);
  }
//etc
}
The size of the text file and the size of your compiled code are impossible to relate. The compiled size purely depends on what your code consists of, not the size.

To find out how much room your code will take on the chip you need to compile it. The IDE will then tell you how much flash and RAM it takes.

For example:

Sketch uses 3730 bytes (13%) of program storage space. Maximum is 28672 bytes.
Global variables use 157 bytes (6%) of dynamic memory, leaving 2403 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 2560 bytes.