Re: x86 register allocation

Robert Sherry <rsherry@home.com>
28 Mar 1999 16:59:49 -0500

          From comp.compilers

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From: Robert Sherry <rsherry@home.com>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 28 Mar 1999 16:59:49 -0500
Organization: @Home Network
References: 99-03-080
Keywords: 386, registers

John,


Here are my thoughts on your question. I believe you are
correct in concluding that the register coloring idea will not work
well on this processor family. I would leave DX and AX as scratch
registers. This still leaves BX, CX , SI and DI for use.


My experience indicates to me that allocating registers on the
basic block level is the way to go. By a basic block on mean a section
of code with a single entry and single exit. You might want to
allocate BX and CX at the basic block level.


You did not mention the source language. Some languages have a
register key word in the language, which is an hint to the compiler
that this variable should be allocated to a fast register. If your
source language has such a feature you may want to allocate those
variables to SI and DI. You might also want to allocate SI and DI to
variable that are used the most throughout a single
subroutine/function. This can be done by simple counting the number of
times the variable is used/referenced in a function. This count can be
weighted for variables inside loops. One draw back is that your
compiler must either process the entire subroutine/function all at
once or be 2 passes. If this approach seems like to much work then you
could allocate SI and DI at the basic block level also.


I hope this helps.


Robert Sherry
rsherry@home.com




dplass@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> Can anyone give me a pointer to help me with x86 register allocation?


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