Heap analysis and optimizations for threaded programs

Abstract

Traditional compiler optimizations such as loop invariant removal and common sub-expression elimination are standard in all optimizing compilers. The purpose of the paper is to present new versions of these optimizations that apply to programs using dynamically allocated data structures, and to show the effect of these optimizations on the performance of multithreaded programs. We show how heap pointer analyses can be used to support better dependence testing, new applications of the above traditional optimizations, and high quality code generation for multithreaded architectures. We have implemented these analyses and optimizations in the EARTH-C compiler to study their impact on the performance of generated multithreaded code. We provide both static and dynamic measurements showing the effect of the optimizations applied individually, and together. We note several general trends, and discuss the performance tradeoffs and suggest when specific optimizations are generally beneficial.