Profile-Guided Compiler Optimizations

Over the past several decades numerous compile-time optimizations have been developed to speed up the execution of programs. Application of a typical optimization can be viewed as consisting of two primary tasks: uncovering optimization opportunities through static analysis of the program; and transforming the program to exploit the uncovered opportunities. Most of the early work on classical code optimizations is based upon a very simple performance model. Optimizations are de ned such that their application is always considered to have a positive impact on performance. Therefore, the focus of the research has been on developing aggressive analysis techniques for uncovering opportunities for optimization in greater numbers and designing powerful program transformations to exploit most if not all of the uncovered opportunities. While the simplicity of the approach is attractive, in recent years it has been recognized that the above approach for optimizing program...