[fpc-devel] Proposed new utility functions for x86 peephole optimiser (and maybe others)

[J. Gareth Moreton]

Hi everyone,

During my implementation of a new optimisation, 
https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc/source/-/merge_requests/136, which 
merges some references, Florian asked me to make sure I check the 
volatility fields of the references, something which I forgot about, but 
which turned out was already covered thanks to the fields being checked 
by the RefsEqual function (they must both be []).

It got me thinking, but in this case, the two references that are 
optimised are only read from, not written, so the optimisation would 
still be valid if one or both were vol_write.  Would it be plausible to 
maybe add a couple of versions of RefsEqual that address volatility 
better? For example:

function RefsEqualPermissive(const r1, r2: treference; 
permitted_volatility: tvolatilityset): Boolean;

In this case, anything in permitted_volatility is considered 'allowed', 
so the optimisation in the link above would permit vol_write since the 
references are only read from, and this would be checked in the function 
by "(r1.volatility + permitted_volatility) = (r2.volatility + 
permitted_volatility)". In the case of permitted_volatility = vol_write, 
if either r1 or r2 has vol_read, the comparison fails.

function RefsEqualVolatile(const r1, r2: treference): Boolean;

In this version, the volatility isn't checked at all and is logically 
equivalent to calling RefsEqualPermissive with [vol_read, vol_write] 
(and any other values that are added), but slightly faster.

Gareth aka. Kit


-- 
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus