Re: How to auto-parallelize a binary code?

On Fri, 5 Jun 2009 23:52:35 -0700 (PDT), yunzhi <xueyunzhi@gmail.com>
wrote:
>We have an important single-threaded application. It was developed
>several years ago but the source code is gone. ...


>I do know the single-thread performance will be improved. But how to
>auto-parallelize this binary code? Are there any tools or related
>research?


As others have said, rewriting the application is your best bet.


As far as I know there is no current research on auto-parallelizing
native binaries. Back in the 1980's some groups were looking into it,
but rapid advances in single core performance killed interest in the
idea. Virtually all of the tools available now work either at the
source level or at the AST level in the compiler.


If you are desperate for better performance, one thing you might look
into is disassembling the program and re-assembling it to target the
new processor architecture. Modern processors can do a certain amount
of hardware instruction reordering to accommodate older code, but if
you're leaping one or more processor generations, a peephole optimizer
(sometimes called a "window" optimizer) specifically targeted to the
new processor can make a big difference for single core performance.


George

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.