Title
Exploring the structure of the space of compilation sequences using randomized search algorithms
Abstract
Modern optimizing compilers apply a fixed sequence of optimizations, which we call a compilation sequence, to each program that they compile. These compilers let the user modify their behavior in a small number of specified ways, using command-line flags (e.g.,-O1,-O2,...). For five years, we have been working with compilers that automatically select an appropriate compilation sequence for each input program. These adaptive compilers discover a good compilation sequence tailored to the input program, the target machine, and a user-chosen objective function. We have shown, as have others, that program-specific sequences can produce better results than any single universal sequence [1, 7, 10, 21, 23] Our adaptive compiler looks for compilation sequences in a large and complex search space. Its typical compilation sequence includes 10 passes (with possible repeats) chosen from the 16 available--there are 1610 or [1,099,511,627,776] such sequences. To learn about the properties of such spaces, we have studied subspaces that consist of 10 passes drawn from a set of 5 (510 or 9,765,625 sequences). These 10-of-5 subspaces are small enough that we can analyze them thoroughly but large enough to reflect important properties of the full spaces.This paper reports, in detail, on our analysis of several of these subspaces and on the consequences of those observed properties for the design of search algorithms.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1007/s11227-006-7954-5
The Journal of Supercomputing
Keywords
Field
DocType
Compilers,Code optimization,Adaptive compilation
Program optimization,Randomized algorithm,Program transformation,Search algorithm,Computer science,Parallel computing,Optimizing compiler,Theoretical computer science,Compiler,Linear subspace,Single Compilation Unit
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
36
2
0920-8542
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
21
1.99
13
Authors
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Keith D. Cooper11726229.37
Alexander Grosul21298.76
Timothy J. Harvey325116.53
Steve Reeves4211.99
Devika Subramanian5687120.10
Linda Torczon61096146.31
Todd Waterman71439.95