[LLVMdev] Contribute a new precise pointer analysis to LLVM

[lian li]

Hi Evan,

We did an experiment using the LLVM test suite: we compare the
overhead of using our analysis to the LLVM default, both with -O2
option.

The overall overhead of compiling the whole test suite using our
analysis is 36.5%.
The biggest overhead is  observed in
"SingleSource/Benchmarks/Misc/flops-5", where we are 5 times slower:
0.07s (with our analysis) compared to 0.0133s(default).
This may not be accurate as the compilation time in both cases are quite small.

Remind that the compilation time is reported by running our analysis
over individual files, the compilation time overhead will be larger if
we link all individual compilation units together and run the
analysis over the whole application.

Regards,
Lian

On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 7:56 AM, Evan Cheng <evan.cheng at apple.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 17, 2013, at 10:51 PM, lian li <lianli at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Chris.
>>
>> We are interested in contributing it to LLVM itself. Our manager
>> agrees to commit resources for maintenance needs if it is accepted by
>> the community.
>
> This is great. Please make sure Oracle legal sign off on explicitly granting LLVM the use of the patents associated with the work.
>
> On the compile time front, can you do a comparison with the LLVM default and your new AA? You can just build the LLVM test suite.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Evan
>
>>
>> Regards,
>> Lian
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 3:43 PM, Chris Lattner <clattner at apple.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Oct 17, 2013, at 5:20 PM, lian li <lianli at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> This is Lian Li  from Oracle Labs in Brisbane Australia.
>>>
>>> We have developed a precise and highly efficient pointer analysis
>>> framework on top of LLVM,  The approach is flow, context, and field
>>> sensitive, details are described in the two papers below:
>>>
>>> "Boosting the performance of flow-sensitive points-to analysis using
>>> value flow" (in ESEC-FSE 2011), and
>>> "Precise and scalable context-sensitive pointer analysis via value
>>> flow graph" (in ISMM 2013).
>>>
>>> The analysis was initially developed for the purpose of bug checking,
>>> and is now extended to support compiler optimizations. We have tested
>>> it with existing compiler optimizations in LLVM, and have seen
>>> promising results.
>>>
>>> We are now considering to make this analysis available to the LLVM
>>> community, and contribute resources for future maintenance needs,
>>> provided that there is enough interest. We think that a new precise
>>> pointer analysis in LLVM can enable more new optimization and analysis
>>> techniques to be developed in LLVM.
>>>
>>> Any people interested in seeing a new precise pointer analysis in LLVM?
>>>
>>>
>>> This sounds very interesting.  Even if it isn't fast enough to be used with
>>> (for example) clang -O2 or -O3, having such a precise analysis would be a
>>> great baseline for doing other alias analysis work.
>>>
>>> Are you interested in contributing this to LLVM itself, or just asking if
>>> people would be interested to see the code in some other form?
>>>
>>> -Chris
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> // Copyright @ 2011 Authorized by ** LIAN LI **
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>



-- 
// Copyright @ 2011 Authorized by ** LIAN LI **