Optimization passes =================== This page lists the optimization passes that the MCI supports. Fast passes are those that are considered extremely fast at executing, while slow passes are those that take a very long time to run. Moderate passes are somewhere in between. Unsafe passes are those that may actually alter the semantics of a program in order to get better performance. In general, these should not be used unless you *really* know what you're doing (a program typically has to be written with these passes in mind in order to not break when they're used). Note that some optimization passes only work in SSA form, while others only work on non-SSA form. Some passes are form-agnostic. Fast passes +++++++++++ Nop remover ----------- **Pass name** ``nop-rem`` **IR type** Any This pass removes all ``nop`` instructions in a function. It is mostly useful to conserve disk and memory space if a program has many ``nop`` instructions. Comment remover --------------- **Pass name** ``comm-rem`` **IR type** Any This pass removes all ``comment`` instructions in a function. It is mostly useful to conserve disk and memory space if a program has many ``comment`` instructions. Unused register remover ----------------------- **Pass name** ``unused-reg`` **IR type** Any This is a very simple pass that simply removes all unused registers in a function. This is completely harmless for the most part, but has the minor side-effect that the stack layout of the function will be different once unused registers are removed. Generally, programs should not rely on stack layout in the first place, so it is safe to assume that this optimization is always safe. Running this pass after sparse conditional constant propagation and dead code elimination is generally a good idea, since it cleans up the registers left behind by those passes. Unused basic block remover -------------------------- **Pass name** ``unused-bb`` **IR type** Any This pass removes all unused basic blocks in a function. A basic block is considered unused if no branching instruction in the function targets it and the basic block isn't set as the unwind block of any *other* basic blocks (if the basic block has itself set as unwind block, it is considered unused). Running this pass after sparse conditional constant propagation is generally a good idea, since it cleans up the basic blocks left behind by that pass, which can significantly reduce code size. Constant folder --------------- **Pass name** ``const-fold`` **IR type** SSA This pass performs simple constant folding. This includes all binary operators (like add, subtract, multiply, divide, and so on) except comparison operators. In general, the pass only concerns itself with integers with a fixed size and floating-point values. It doesn't attempt to optimize operations on native integers. Note also that the pass stops folding if it encounters a division by zero, since this usually means that a hardware trap must be generated at runtime, rather than silently ignoring it at compile time. This pass should in most cases be applied before any other passes. Dead code eliminator -------------------- **Pass name** ``dce`` **IR type** SSA This is an agressive dead code elimination pass. It assumes that all of a function's instructions are dead until proven otherwise. Specifically, it starts out with a list of all 'root' instructions. These are the instructions known to be live unconditionally. The pass currently assumes, conservatively, that all instructions without a target register are live. Further, instructions with target registers that have side-effects (such as pinning a reference, allocating memory, and so on) are considered live. All terminator instructions are considered live as well. This list of root instructions is then used to propagate liveness backwards such that all of the instructions that the root instructions depend on are also considered live. Finally, the instructions that are not live are removed. It's a good idea to run this after sparse conditional constant propagation to clean up dead definitions. Moderate passes +++++++++++++++ Slow passes +++++++++++ Unsafe passes +++++++++++++