380C

Last Time

Course organization
Read Backus et al.

Today

Announcements

Hadi lab Q&A Wed

1-2 in Painter 5.38N
UT Texas Learning
Center: 5 hours of
free writing
consultation,
$13per hour

Lecture 1

CS 380C

Questions on course
organization?
Whats a compiler?
How does it work?

What is a compiler?
A program that translates a program in one
language to another language
The essential interface between applications &
architectures

Typically lowers the level of abstraction

analyzes and reasons about the program &
architecture

We expect the program to be optimized, i.e.,

better than the original
ideally exploiting architectural strengths and
hiding weaknesses

Lecture 1

CS 380C

When should we compile?

Ahead-of-time: before you run the
program
Offline profiling: compile several times
compile/run/profile.... then run again
Just-in-time: while you run the program
required for dynamic class loading, i.e.,
Java, Python, etc.

Lecture 1

CS 380C

Arent compilers
a solved problem?
Optimization for scalar machines is a problem
that was solved ten years ago.
David Kuck, Fall 1990

Lecture 1

CS 380C

Arent compilers
a solved problem?
Optimization for scalar machines is a problem
that was solved ten years ago.
David Kuck, Fall 1990

Lecture 1

Architectures keep changing

Languages keep changing
Applications keep changing - SPEC CPU?
When to compile keeps changing

CS 380C

Role of compilers
Bridge complexity and evolution in
architecture, languages, & applications
Help programmers with correctness,
reliability, program understanding
Compiler optimizations can significantly
improve performance
1 to 10x on conventional processors

Performance stability: one line change

can dramatically alter performance
unfortunate, but true

Lecture 1

CS 380C

Optimization
What should it do?

Lecture 1

CS 380C

Optimization
What should it do?

1. improve running time, or

2. decrease space requirements
3. decrease power consumption

How does it do it?

Lecture 1

CS 380C

Analysis
Scope of program analysis

1. within a basic block (local)

2. within a method (global)
3. across methods (interprocedural)

Analysis

1. control flow graph - dominators, loops, etc.

2. dataflow analysis - flow of values
3. static-single-assignment transform
programs such that each variable has a unique
definition
4. alias analysis - pointer memory usage
5. dependence analysis - array memory usage

Lecture 1

CS 380C

Example optimizations
Division of optimizations

1. Machine independent
2. Machine dependent
Faster code optimizations
common subexpression elimination
constant folding
dead code elimination
register allocation
scheduling
loop transformations

Lecture 1

CS 380C

10

Basic Compiler Structure

Higher to lower level
representations, analyses, & transformations

Program
Structural
Scalar Memory Reg. Scheduling
inlining
cse scalar repl Alloc peephole
unrolling
constants ptrs
loop perm expressions

Lecture 1

CS 380C

Machine
code

11

Exciting times
New and changing architectures

Hitting the microprocessor wall

multicore, tiled architectures, tiled memory systems

Object-oriented languages becoming dominant paradigm

Java and C# coming to your OS soon - Jnode, Singularity

Security and reliability, ease of programming

Key challenges and approaches

Latency & parallelism still key to performance

Language & runtime implementation efficiency
Orchestrating a new software/hardware dance
Break down artificial system boundaries

Feedback

Programmer

Code

H/S Profiling

Compiler

Specification
Lecture 1

Code

Runtime

Future behavior
CS 380C

12

Questions?

Lecture 1

CS 380C

13

Programming Assignment #1
380C Lab 1
Due: Friday 9/11 5pm
Translate from 3 address code to C
We provide a high-level language:

SC: a C-Subset that has functions, recursion, one type of

integer (long==8 bytes), arrays, structs, no floating point, no
pointers, etc.

We provide csc a C-subset compiler that translates

from SC to valid 3 address code
You translate it back to C code

Hadi will be available for Q&A Wednesday 9/2 12pm (special location).

Lecture 1

CS 380C

14

Overview
Today

Introduction to
compilers

Lecture 1

Next Time

program
representation
control flow
Read wiki--No
critique on wiki
reading!

CS 380C

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