[cfe-dev] Proposed changes to vectorize_width #pragma

[David Sherwood via cfe-dev]

Hi Roger,

Thanks for the suggestion. With regards to possible use cases of a vectorize_style(any)
pragma my thoughts are:

1. Any existing tests that currently use vectorize_width(#number) were presumably
written with fixed width vectorisation in mind. So it makes sense in those cases
for the default to be fixed width. If the user wants to go back and fix them to explicitly
use scalable vectorisation they can just add vectorize_width(#number, scalable). We
feel that specifying the numeric part of the vectorisation factor without also considering
if the factor is fixed-length or scalable is not a realistic/real world use case. I imagine
that best results will be obtained by letting the vectoriser choose the best pair, i.e.
vectorize_width(4, fixed) or vectorize_width(8, scalable).
2. However, if the user wants the compiler to choose the best option (fixed or scalable)
then we already have a route for that with vectorize(enable). Similarly when compiling
at -O2 or above the compiler will choose the most profitable option.

Kind Regards,
David.

From: Roger Ferrer Ibáñez <rofirrim at gmail.com>
Sent: 30 November 2020 13:34
To: David Sherwood <David.Sherwood at arm.com>
Cc: cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org
Subject: Re: [cfe-dev] Proposed changes to vectorize_width #pragma

Hi David,

Your proposal looks sensible to me. I understand that for reasons of evolution of the pragma, you chose to give it `fixed` semantics if no explicit mark of vectorisation style appears, right?

Is this something in the future we'd want to relax? This way the target could also pick the best vectorization style (borrowing Sjoerd's terminology here).
Perhaps we could define a `vectorize_style(any)` as well. That would be the one used if no explicit `vectorize_style` is specified.


As a further extension I’d also like to permit vectorize_width(fixed|scalable) to
allow users to hint at the type of vector used without specifying the
vectorisation factor. Examples of this would be:


  // Vectorize the loop with <N x eltty> for a profitable N

  #pragma clang loop vectorize_width(fixed)

  // Vectorize the loop with <vscale x N x eltty> for a profitable N

  #pragma clang loop vectorize_width(scalable)
In those cases, I imagine `vectorize_style` could be enough and we avoid having a `vectorize_width` that doesn't actually tell us the width (or the factor of the actual width, for scalables). But this falls in the "aesthetics" category, I think.

Kind regards,
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