Cooperative program code transformation

• US 9,329,846 B1
• Filed: 11/22/2010
• Issued: 05/03/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/25/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Parakinetics Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Parakinetics Incorporated
• Inventors: August, David I., Mehrara, Mojtaba, Fan, Kevin C., Lee, Jae Wook, Mahlke, Scott A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Aponte, Francisco
• Application Number:
  US12/951,470
• Time in Patent Office: 1,989 Days
• Field of Search: 717101-178, 171151-160
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90 Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/443 Optimisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45525 Optimisation or modification within the same instruction set architecture, e.g. HP Dynamo

Abstract

Cooperative program code transformation includes receiving a transformation hint request, obtaining a suitable transformation hint, and providing the suitable transformation hint such that it is used to transform at least a portion of the program code and generate optimized code.

Claims

1. A cooperative program code transformation method comprising:

receiving, at a server, a transformation hint request that is sent by a client;

obtaining, from a database comprising a plurality of transformation hints associated with a plurality of corresponding sets of program code, a suitable transformation hint for a set of program code, wherein;

the suitable transformation hint comprises information pertaining to one or more of;

a mismatch of an instruction address of a dynamic trace of the set of program code and a corresponding instruction address in a statically disassembled output of the set of program code;

or

a region in which at least a portion of the set of program code is to be ignored by a client-side disassembler in subsequent transformations;

and the suitable transformation hint is generated based at least in part on profile information comprising one or more of;

basic block execution counts;

memory dependence information;

or

control flow information;

providing the suitable transformation hint generated based at least in part on the profile information to the client, wherein the suitable transformation hint generated based at least in part on the profile information is used by the client to transform at least a portion of the program code and generate optimized code.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint is identified among the plurality of transformation hints associated with the plurality of corresponding sets of program code.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the optimized code has better performance than the program code.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the optimized code consumes less power than the program code.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein program code includes binary code.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint is generated by a human expert.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving feedback from the client.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the feedback includes profile information.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the profile information includes control flow information.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the profile information includes memory dependence information.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the suitable transformation hint includes looking up the suitable transformation hint among the plurality of transformation hints using a signature that is derived based at least in part on at least a portion of the program code.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising deriving the transformation hint.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint is derived based at least in part on feedback information.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint indicates how to perform an optimization in the program code.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint indicates a property of the code.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint indicates how to reliably disassemble the program code.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint includes an address of a region of code to be disassembled.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint includes an address of code that is known to be mistranslated by a static disassembler.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint indicates to a client executing the optimized code of validity of code addresses.

20. The method of claim 1, where the suitable transformation hint includes an address of a region of the program code to be optimized.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint is used to automatically parallelize at least a portion of the program code.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint indicates a type of optimization to be performed.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint indicates a type of code partitioning for extracting thread-level parallelism.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the suitable transformation hint indicates assignment of instructions to threads.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of one or more suitable transformation hints further includes one or more addresses of code that has not been executed in a dynamic trace on the server.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving from the client statistics about dynamic characteristics collected during run-time of the set of program code.

27. A cooperative program code transformation system comprising:

one or more processors configured to;

receive a transformation hint request that is sent by a client;

obtain, from a database comprising a plurality of transformation hints associated with a plurality of corresponding sets of program code, a suitable transformation hint for a set of program code, wherein;

the suitable transformation hint comprises information pertaining to one or more of;

a mismatch of an instruction address of a dynamic trace of the set of program code and a corresponding instruction address in a statically disassembled output of the set of program code;

or

a region in which at least a portion of the set of program code is to be ignored by a client-side disassembler in subsequent transformations;

and the suitable transformation hint is generated based at least in part on profile information comprising one or more of;

basic block execution counts;

memory dependence information;

or

control flow information;

provide the suitable transformation hint generated based at least in part on the profile information to the client, wherein the suitable transformation hint generated based at least in part on the profile information is used by the client to transform at least a portion of the program code and generate optimized code; and

one or more memories coupled to the one or more processors and configured to provide the one or more processor with instructions.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to receive from the client statistics about dynamic characteristics collected during run-time of the set of program code.

29. A computer program product for cooperative program code transformation, the computer program product being embodied in a tangible non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:

receiving a transformation hint request that is sent by a client;

obtaining, from a database comprising a plurality of transformation hints associated with a plurality of corresponding sets of program code, a suitable transformation hint for a set of program code, wherein;

the suitable transformation hint comprises information pertaining to one or more of;

a mismatch of an instruction address of a dynamic trace of the set of program code and a corresponding instruction address in a statically disassembled output of the set of program code;

or

a region in which at least a portion of the set of program code is to be ignored by a client-side disassembler in subsequent transformations;

and the suitable transformation hint is generated based at least in part on profile information comprising one or more of;

basic block execution counts;

memory dependence information;

or

control flow information;

providing the suitable transformation hint generated based at least in part on the profile information to the client, wherein the suitable transformation hint generated based at least in part on the profile information is used by the client to transform at least a portion of the program code and generate optimized code.

30. The computer program product of claim 29, further comprising computer instructions for receiving from the client statistics about dynamic characteristics collected during run-time of the set of program code.

31. A cooperative program code transformation method comprising:

obtaining, by a client, a transformation hint from a server, the transformation hint indicating a transformation of a set of program code, wherein;

the transformation hint comprises information pertaining to one or more of;

a mismatch of an instruction address of a dynamic trace of the set of program code and a corresponding instruction address in a statically disassembled output of the set of program code;

or

a region in which at least a portion of the set of program code is to be ignored by a client-side disassembler in subsequent transformations;

and the transformation hint is generated based at least in part on profile information comprising one or more of;

basic block execution counts;

memory dependence information;

or

control flow information;

transforming the program code based at least in part on the transformation hint generated based at least in part on the profile information, to;

generate optimized code at the client; and

execute the optimized code at the client.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein obtaining the transformation hint includes determining a signature associated with the program code, and requesting for the transformation hint associated with the signature.

33. The method of claim 31, further comprising:

collecting statistics about dynamic characteristics during run-time of the set of program code; and

sending the statistics to the server.