Code Specialization Based on Value Profiles

Abstract. It is often the case at runtime that variables and registers in programs are "quasi-invariant," i.e., the distribution of the values they take on is very skewed, with a small number of values occurring most of the time. Knowledge of such frequently occurring values can be exploited by a compiler to generate code that optimizes for the common cases without sacrificing the ability to handle the general case. The idea can be generalized to the notion of expression profiles, which profile the runtime values of arbitrary expressions and can permit optimizations that may not be possible using simple value profiles. Since this

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: SAS
• Authors: Robert Muth, Scott A. Watterson, Saumya K. Debray
• Keywords: Formal Methods, Runtime Values, SAS 2000, Simple Value Profiles, Small Number