Selecting Software Phase Markers with Code Structure Analysis

Most programs are repetitive, where similar behavior can be seen at different execution times. Algorithms have been proposed that automatically group similar portions of a program’s execution into phases, where samples of execution in the same phase have homogeneous behavior and similar resource requirements. In this paper, we present an automated profiling approach to identify code locations whose executions correlate with phase changes. These “software phase markers” can be used to easily detect phase changes across different inputs to a program without hardware support. Our approach builds a combined hierarchical procedure call and loop graph to represent a program’s execution, where each edge also tracks the max, average, and standard deviation in hierarchical execution variability on paths from that edge. We search this annotated call-loop graph for instructions in the binary that accurately identify the start of unique stable behaviors across different inputs. We show t...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: CGO
• Authors: Jeremy Lau, Erez Perelman, Brad Calder
• Keywords: CGO 2006, Phase Changes, Phase Markers, Program’s Execution, Software Engineering