static estimation of conditional branches?

I was wondering if anyone is aware of any studies performed to staticly
estimate the direction of non-loop back conditional branches in C
programs. So for example, what is the probability an "if" with no "else"
likely to be taken in C programs or equivalenlty what is the probability
an "if" with an "else" likely to be taken. I am aware of execution
profiling to derive these numbers, but what I am interested in is methods
to provide the compiler with some reasonable conditional branch direction
estimates without execution profiling. Any information, references, etc.
would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help.


Scott


Scott Mahlke Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing
mahlke@crhc.uiuc.edu University of Illinois
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