COMPILER DESIGN

[Year]

K.L.N. COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
UNIT IV
CODE OPTIMIZATION AND CODE
GENERATION
TWO MARK WITH ANSWERS
1.What is code optimization?
The code optimization is required to produce an efficient
target code.
There are two important issues that need to be considered
while applying the techniques for code optimization and
those are:
The semantic equivalence of the source program must
not be changed.
The improvement over the program efficiently must be
achieved without changing the algorithm of the
program.
2.Explain Machine dependent optimization.
It has some special machine properties that can reduce the
amount of code or execution time. It is dependent on the
source language and target machine.
Using immediate instruction sequences.
Ex:Register allocation, Utilization of special machine
instruction sequences.
3.Explain Machine Indepentent optimization.
IT depends only on the arithmetic Operation in the
language and not on the target machine.
The program transformations improve the target code
without taking into consideration any properties of the
target machine.
Elimination unreachable code from the source program.
4.Properties of Optimizing compiler.
The source code should be such that it should produce
minimum amount of target code.
There should not be any unreachable code.

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Dead code should be completely removed from source

language.
The Optimizing compilers should apply following code
improving transformations on source language.
Common sub expression Elimination
Dead code Elimination
Code movement
Strength reduction
5.Transformation techniques that can be applied in code
Optimization.
Constant folding
Constant propagation
Common sub expression
Variable propagation
Code Movement
Strength Reduction
Dead code Elimination
Loop Invariant computation
Loop Optimization
6.What is constant Folding
Intuition:Based on deducing at compile time, that the value
of expression is a constant.
Constant folding is the transformation that substitutesnan
expression with a constant.
Constant folding is useful to discover dead code
Ex: if(x) goto L. x is always false. We can eliminate both the
if test and jump to L.
7.Explain Constant Propagation.
In This technique the value of variable is replaced and
computation of expression is done at the compile time.
Ex: Pi=3.14 r=5 A=Pi*r*r
Pi is replaced by 3.14, r is 5 then computation of 3.14*5*5
is done during computation.
8.Explain Common Sub Expression.
An occurance of an expression E is called Common sub
Expression. If E was previous computed and values of

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variables in E have no changed,since the previous

computation.
Assignments to temporary variables involving common sub
expression can be eliminated.
9.Explain Dead code Elimination.
Intiuition:A variable is live at a point in a program if it value
can be used subsequently otherwise is dead.
Deadcode:A piece of code is dead, if data computed is never
used elsewhere and can be eliminated.. Useless code can
better be eliminated.
Dead code may appear as the result of previous
transformation.Dead code works well together with copy
propagation.
Ex: After copy propagation we can see that x is never reused
all over the code.
10.Define Code motion
The loop invariant optimization can be obtained by moving
some amount of code outside the loop and placing it just
before entering in the loop.
It moves code outside the loop.
The transformation takes an expression that yields the same
results independent of the number of times a loop is
executed and place the expression before the loop.
Ex: Consider the statement
while(i<= limit-2)
Code motion
t:limit-2
while(i<=t)
11.Explain Induction variable elimination.
A variable x is an Induction variable of a loop if every time
the variable x changes values, it is incremented or
decremented by some constant.
In general when there are two or more Induction variables.
It is possible to get rid of all but one.
12.Explain Reduction in strength.
It is based on the replacement of a computation with a less
expensive one.

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This replacement will speed up the object code if addition

takes less time than multiplication as is the case in many
machines.
13.Define Loop unrolling.
In this method the number of jumps and test can be
reduced by writing the code two times.
14.Define Peephole Optimization.
It is a method for trying to improve the performance of the
target program by examining a short sequence of target
instructions and replacing those instructions by a shorter or
faster sequence wherever possible.
The peephole is a small moving window on the target
program.
15.State the role of a code generator.
As we see that the final phase in any compiler is the code
generator.
In takes as input an intermediate representation of the source
program and produces as output an equivalent target
program, as shown in the figure.
Optimization phase is optional as far as compilers correct
working is considered. In order to have a good compiler
following conditions should hold:

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16.Explain the various form of object code.(RE)

Absolute machine code:
Producing an absolute machine language program as
output has

the advantage that it can be placed in a fixed

location in memory and immediately executed.

Relocatable machine code:
Producing a relocatable machine language program as
output allows subprograms to be compiled separately. A set
of relocatable object modules can be linked together and
loaded for execution by a linking loader. If the target
machine does not handle relocation automatically, the
compiler must provide explicit relocation information to the
loader, to link the separately compiled program segments.
Assembly code:
Producing an assembly language program as output
makes the process of code generation some what easier.

17.Define Intermediate code generation?

Retargeting is facilitated. That is, a compiler for a
different machine can be created by attaching a back
end for the new machine to an existing front end.
A machine-independent code optimizer can be applied
to the intermediate representation.

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18.State the application of DAG.

DAGs are useful for:
1. Removing common local sub-expressions.
2. Renaming temporaries.
3. Finding names used inside the block but evaluated outside.
4. Finding statements in the block that could have their
computed values used outside the block.
5.Statements that can be reordered (or executed in parallel).
19.fuction Getreg()
The function getreg() when called upon to return where the
computations specifications by the three address statements
x=y op z should be performed returns a location l.
20.Register and address descriptors.
The code generation algorithm uses descriptors to keep
track of register contents and address for names.
Register descriptors: A register descriptor is a pointer to a
list containing information about the current contents of
each register. Initially,all the registers can be empty.
Address descriptors: an address descriptors keeps track of
the location where the current values of the names can be
found at runtime. This information can be stored in the
symbol table.

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