The first release of the Tempo Specializer

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                            Tempo Specializer, a partial evaluator for C
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                                  IRISA / INRIA - University of Rennes 1


The Compose group is pleased to announce the first public release of
the Tempo Specializer, a partial evaluator for C programs developed
at IRISA / INRIA - University of Rennes 1.


PARTIAL EVALUATION


    Partial evaluation is the process that automates specialization, a
    program transformation that adapts programs with respect to a given
    execution context. Exploiting this context allows a generic program
    to be instantiated for a particular environment. The instantiated
    program is optimized in the sense that all the operations depending
    on the given context are already performed: it is faster, sometimes
    smaller.


TEMPO


    Tempo is an off-line specializer: specialization is divided into
    two steps. First, a program analysis propagates information about
    known and unknown values throughout the code. A colored interface
    lets the user assess the degree of specialization. Then,
    actual specialization values are provided and specialized code is
    produced. Tempo can specialize programs at compile time (i.e.,
    source-to-source tranformation) as well as at run time (i.e.,
    run-time code generation).


APPLICATIONS


    Tempo has been used to dramatically improve the performance of a
    wide range of commodity operating systems components, including
    Sun's RPC, Unix signal delivery, and the Berkeley packet filter.
    Besides operating systems and networking, Tempo has also been
    successfully applied to computer graphics, scientific computation,
    software engineering and domain specific languages. Some demos are
    available with the release, which include the Berkeley packet filter
    and a light version of the Sun's RPC.


DISTRIBUTION


    This release follows the success of a Tempo workshop organized at
    IRISA, March 16-18, 1998. Tempo is currently being used at a dozen
    sites in academia (including MIT, DIKU, and Oregon Graduate Institute)
    as well as industry (including Thomson, Canon, Bull and France
    Telecom).
    Instructions describing how to get the Tempo Specializer are given at
    URL
            http://www.irisa.fr/compose/tempo/#distribution


    Tempo can run on three platforms: Sun OS 4.1, Sun OS 5.5 (i.e.,
    Solaris 2.5) and Linux 2.0 on PC.


INFORMATION


    More details can be found on our web pages concerning
        - the Compose project: http://www.irisa.fr/compose/
        - Tempo Specializer: http://www.irisa.fr/compose/tempo
        - on-line documentation: http://www.irisa.fr/compose/tempo/doc
        - selected publications: http://www.irisa.fr/compose/papers
        - selected talks: http://www.irisa.fr/compose/talks
    In case of any questions or problems, please send mail to
    tempo@irisa.fr.
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