Richard Johnsson

An Approach to Global Register Allocation Degree Type: Ph.D. in Computer Science
Advisor(s): William Wulf
Graduated: May 1976

Abstract:

The thesis presents an approach to the problem of global register allocation as performed by an optimizing compiler. The problem considered is actually the more general one of choosing what physical resource within the target machine will be used to hold the results of various computations in a running program. The results may be the values of common redundant subexpressions, partial results developed during expression evaluation, or variables declared by the programmer. An optimizing compiler can make better use of the resources of the target machine if these decisions are all considered together at or near the source level rather than being distributed throughout the compiler and operating at both source and object levels. A decomposition of an optimizing compiler is presented with research focusing on one part of the compiler, namely the part which assigns the computed results to physical locations.

Thesis Committee:
William Wulf (Chair)

Joseph Traub, Head, Computer Science Department