[LLVMdev] program specialization vs LTO in LLVM

[brdavs]

> LTO and partial evaluation are completely orthogonal

> from each other.  One is an optimization technique 
> and the other is a time that optimization can 
> occur.  Please explain a bit more about what you are

> trying to accomplish.

A contrived example I had in mind is a program that
computes a power function. In pseudocode:

int powerFunc( int x, int n )
{
   if n is 0
      return 1
   
   if n is even
      return square( powerFunc( x, 0.5*n ) )

   if n is odd
      return x * powerFunc( x, n - 1 )
}

If we know what the exponent (say n = 5) is at compile
time, program can be optimized via specialization
(partial evaluation) to get:

int powerFunc5( int x )
{
    return x * square( square( x ) );
}
 
My question is whether LLVM framework can perform
these 
types of transformations at runtime so that the
function can be optimized at runtime based on the
program's input as opposed to at compile time via
specialization. If yes, what are the trade-offs?

In a real program, functions would of course be very
complex with tens of arguments.

Marko 




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