Souper: A Synthesizing Superoptimizer

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1711.04422
• Publication Date: 2017-01-01
• Authors: Raimondas Sasnauskas; Yang Chen; Peter Collingbourne; Jeroen Ketema; Jubi Taneja; John Regehr
• Keywords: FOS: Computer and information sciences; Computer Science - Programming Languages; 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; 02 engineering and technology; Programming Languages (cs.PL)

If we can automatically derive compiler optimizations, might be able to sidestep some of the substantial engineering challenges involved in creating and maintaining a high-quality compiler. We developed Souper, synthesizing superoptimizer, see how far these ideas pushed context LLVM. Along way, discovered that Souper's intermediate representation was sufficiently similar one Microsoft Visual C++ applied Souper as well. Shipping, or about-to-ship, versions both compilers contain optimizations suggested by but implemented hand. Alternately, when is used fully automated optimization pass it compiles Clang binary about 3 MB (4.4%) smaller than compiled