Tailoring Graph-coloring Register Allocation For Runtime Compilation

Just-in-time compilers are invoked during application execution and therefore need to ensure fast compilation times. Consequently, runtime compiler designers are averse to implementing compile-time intensive optimization algorithms. Instead, they tend to select faster but less effective transformations. In this paper, we explore this trade-off for an important optimization – global register allocation. We present a graph-coloring register allocator that has been redesigned for runtime compilation. Compared to ChaitinBriggs [7], a standard graph-coloring technique, the reformulated algorithm requires considerably less allocation time and produces allocations that are only marginally worse than those of Chaitin-Briggs. Our experimental results indicate that the allocator performs better than the linear-scan and Chaitin-Briggs allocators on most benchmarks in a runtime compilation environment. By increasing allocation efficiency and preserving optimization quality, the presented algor...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: CGO
• Authors: Keith D. Cooper, Anshuman Dasgupta
• Keywords: CGO 2006, Register Allocation, Runtime Compilation, Runtime Compiler, Software Engineering