On machines with high-performance processors, the memory system continues to be a performance bottleneck. Compilers insert prefetch operations and reorder data accesses to improve locality, but increasingly seek to modify an application's data layout to reduce cache miss and page fault penalties. In this paper we discuss Global Variable Layout (GVL), an optimization of the placement of entire static global data objects in the binary. We describe two practical methods for GVL in the HP-UX Integrity optimizing compiler for the Itanium © architecture. The first layout strategy relies on profile feedback, collaboratively employing the compiler, the linker and a pre-link tool to facilitate reordering. The second strategy uses whole-program analysis to drive data layout decisions, and does not require the use of a dynamic profile. We give a detailed description of our implementation and evaluate its performance for the SPEC integer benchmark programs, as well as for a large commercial database application.

This paper explores compiler techniques for reducing the memory needed to load and run program executables. In embedded systems, where economic incentives to reduce both ram and rom are strong, the size of compiled code is increasingly important. Similarly, in mobile and network computing, the need to transmit an executable before running it places a premium on code size. Our work focuses on reducing the size of a program's code segment, using pattern-matching techniques to identify and coalesce together repeated instruction sequences. In contrast to other methods, our framework preserves the ability to run program executables directly, without an intervening decompression stage. Our compression framework is integrated into an industrial-strength optimizing compiler, which allows us to explore the interaction between code compression and classical code optimization techniques, and requires that we contend with the difficulties of compressing previously optimized code. The specific contributions in this paper include a comprehensive experimental evaluation of code compression for a Risc-like architecture, a more powerful pattern-matching scheme for improved identification of repeated code fragments, and a new form of profile-driven code compression that reduces the speed penalty arising from compression.

The ParaScope Editor is an interactive parallel programming tool that assists knowledgeable users in developing scientific Fortran programs. It displays the results of sophisticated program analyses, provides a set of powerful interactive transformations, and supports program editing. This paper summarizes experiences of scientific programmers and tool designers using the ParaScope Editor. We evaluate existing features and describe enhancements in three key areas: user interface, analysis, and transformation. many existing features prove crucial to successful program parallelization. They include interprocedural array side-effect analysis and program and dependence view filtering. Desirable functionality includes improved program navigation based on performance estimation, incorporating user assertions in analysis and more guidance in selecting transformations. These results offer insights for the authors of a variety of programming tools and parallelizing compilers.