Metrication tool

["Roel Meeuws" <r dot j dot meeuws at tudelft dot nl>]

Dear Reader,

A few years ago I had already posted a question about implementing a
metrication tool in GCC, i.e. a tool that can measure several metrics
from the source code. Examples could be, the number of variables,
number of multiplications, number of loops, number of functions, etc.
At that time I needed that information for a Hardware Estimation Model
I was building for my MSc. Thesis
(http://ce.et.tudelft.nl/~rmeeuws/thesis.pdf). I was pointed to the
ELSA compiler frontend which suited my purposes just fine...

However, currently in my PhD work I have to take the model several
steps further... First, I need to increase the models accuracy. One
source of inaccuracy is that the metrics I use are determined at a
very high level, i.e. I am counting operations that are removed by
optimizations, like constant propagation, common subexpression
elimination, dead code removal, etc. Therefore I need to measure some
of the metrics at a lower level, which I aim to do using GCC, because
in time the hardware generator (from c code) we use at our department
will probably be moved to GCC at some point as well.

So here is what I would like to know: what kind of metrics could I
measure at e.g. GIMPLE level, and what steps do I need to take to
implement a pass for GIMPLE to measure the needed values?

Many thanks in advance for any help you can provide,

with Kind Regards,

Roel

-- 
--------------------------------------------
Roel Meeuws
PhD. Student
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Electrical Engineering Mathematics and Computer Science
Computer Engineering Laboratory
Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands
--------------------------------------------
Email:r.j.meeuws@tudelft.nl
Office: HB 16.290
Office phone: +31 (0)15 27 82 165
Mob. phone: +31 (0)6 10 82 44 01
--------------------------------------------