Locus: A System and a Language for Program Optimization

S. F.X.Thiago Teixeira, Corinne Ancourt, David Padua, William Gropp

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

We discuss the design and the implementation of Locus, a system and a language to orchestrate the optimization of applications. The increasing complexity of machines and the large space of program variants, produced by the many transformations available, conspire to make compilers deliver unsatisfactory performance. As a result, optimization experts must intervene to manually explore the space of program variants seeking the best version for each target machine. This intervention is unproductive, and maintaining and managing sequences of transformations as new architectures are adopted and new application features are incorporated is challenging.Locus allows collections of program transformation sequences to be specified separately from the application code. The language is able to represent in a clear notation complex collections of transformations that are applied to code regions selected by the programmer. The system integrates multiple optimization modules as well as search modules that facilitate the efficient traversal of the space of program variants. Locus is intended to help experts in the optimization process, specially for complex, long-lived applications that are to be executed on different environments. Four examples are presented to illustrate the power and simplicity of the language. Although not the primary focus of this paper, the examples also show that exploring the space of variants typically leads to better performing codes than those produced by conventional compiler optimizations that are based on heuristics.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCGO 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization
EditorsTipp Moseley, Alexandra Jimborean, Mahmut Taylan Kandemir
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages217-228
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)9781728114361
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 5 2019
Event17th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization, CGO 2019 - Washington, United States
Duration: Feb 16 2019Feb 20 2019

Publication series

NameCGO 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization

Conference

Conference17th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization, CGO 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWashington
Period2/16/192/20/19

Keywords

  • Code generation
  • Compilers
  • Domain-specific language
  • Optimization

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Control and Optimization

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