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A general data dependence test for dynamic, pointer-based data structures

Authors:

Laurie J. Hendren,

Alexandru NicolauAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 29, Issue 6

Pages 218 - 229

https://doi.org/10.1145/773473.178262

Published: 01 June 1994 Publication History

Abstract

Optimizing compilers require accurate dependence testing to enable numerous, performance-enhancing transformations. However, data dependence testing is a difficult problem, particularly in the presence of pointers. Though existing approaches work well for pointers to named memory locations (i.e. other variables), they are overly conservative in the case of pointers to unnamed memory locations. The latter occurs in the context of dynamic, pointer-based data structures, used in a variety of applications ranging from system software to computational geometry to N-body and circuit simulations.

In this paper we present a new technique for performing more accurate data dependence testing in the presence of dynamic, pointer-based data structures. We will demonstrate its effectiveness by breaking false dependences that existing approaches cannot, and provide results which show that removing these dependences enables significant parallelization of a real application.

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A general data dependence test for dynamic, pointer-based data structures

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 29, Issue 6

June 1994

360 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/773473

Guest Editor:
Brent T. Hailpern

Issue’s Table of Contents

PLDI '94: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1994 conference on Programming language design and implementation
August 1994
360 pages
ISBN:089791662X
DOI:10.1145/178243
Chairmen:
Vivek Sarkar
IBM Santa Teresa Lab.
,
Barbara Ryder
Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ
,
Mary Lou Soffa
Univ. of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

Copyright © 1994 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Published: 01 June 1994

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 29, Issue 6

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https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218126619500208
Bergstra JMiddelburg C(2013)Data Linkage Algebra, Data Linkage Dynamics, and Priority RewritingFundamenta Informaticae10.5555/2595015.2595016128:4(367-412)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2013
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