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Re: gcc compile time support for assumptions


Ian Lance Taylor wrote on 01/18/07 10:51:

Well, internally, we do have ASSERT_EXPR.  It would probably take a
little work to permit the frontends to generate it, but the optimizers
should understand it.

By default, they do not. When I initially implemented VRP, I was adding ASSERT_EXPRs right after gimplification. The rationale was to have the ASSERT_EXPRs rewritten into SSA form by the initial SSA pass. This was convenient, but it destroyed the quality of generated code. Suddenly, little or no copies, constants were being propagated, jump threading wasn't working, PRE wasn't doing its job, etc.

The problem was that all these ASSERT_EXPRs were not being grokked by the optimizers, every optimizer would see the assertion, think the worst and block transformations.

It also meant quite a bit of bulk added to the IL which increased compilation times. So, if we decide to add ASSERT_EXPRs early in the pipeline, we have to mind these issues.

In the end, I went for adding assertions inside VRP and fixing up the SSA form incrementally. Perhaps we can do something similar for other passes that may want to deal with assertions.

Now, if these are assertions inserted by the user, that's another problem. The IL wouldn't bulk up so much, but we would still need to handle them everywhere. Assertions shouldn't block scalar cleanups.


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