[llvm-dev] [LLVM] (RFC) Addition/Support of new Vectorization Pragmas in LLVM

[Terry Greyzck via llvm-dev]

The ivdep pragma is intended to assist automatic vectorization - 
basically, automatic vectorization behaves as it normally does, but if 
it gets into a spot where it finds a potential dependence, it continues 
on rather than rejecting the loop.

Reductions are part of cycle-breaking; one possible way to identify 
potential reduction objects is that their address is provably invariant 
with respect to the vectorized loop.  Some examples (assume 'i' is the 
loop primary induction):

x = x + b[i]
    &x is invariant with respect to the 'i' vector loop, and can be a 
reduction candidate

a[0] = a[0] + b[i]
    &a[0] is invariant with respect to the 'i' vector loop, and can be a 
reduction candidate

a[ix[i]] = a[ix[i]] + b[i]
    &a[ix[i]] varies with respect to the 'i' vector loop, and is not a 
reduction candidate
       *  I am ignoring the end case here where all values of ix[i] are 
identical
       *  Without an ivdep, this would be considered a histogram (or 
what Cray used to call 'vector update'), due to possible repeated values 
in array 'ix'
       *  With an ivdep, this becomes a gather, load and add followed by 
a scatter

When outer loop vectorization is considered, identifying vector 
reductions becomes somewhat more complicated, and the simple invariant 
address test is not always sufficient.  Examples on request, though that 
is really a different (and possibly lengthy) discussion.

-- 
Terry Greyzck  |  Cray Inc.
Sr. Principal Engineer, Compiler Optimization

On 8/19/2019 10:30 AM, Doerfert, Johannes wrote:
> Hi Terry,
>
> I'm curious.
>
>>     * Primarily ivdep allows ambiguous dependencies to be ignored, examples:
>>         *  p[i] = q[j]
>>         *  a[ix[i]] = b[iy[i]]
>>         *  a[ix[i]] += 1.0
>>
>>     * ivdep still requires automatic detection of reductions, including
>>       multiple homogeneous reductions on a single variable, examples:
>>         *  x = x + a[i]
>>         *  x = x + a[i]; if ( c[i] > 0.0 ) { x = x + b[i] }
> How do you define the difference between
>    a[ix[i]] += 1.0
> and
>    x += 1.0
> as you require reduction detection for the latter but seem to ignore the
> (histogram) reduction dependences for the former.
>
> Thanks,
>    Johannes