[fpc-devel] Double-checking an optimisation

[J. Gareth Moreton]

Hi everyone,

So a merge request of mine was just approved that allows the peephole 
optimizer access to more registers when it needs one for temporary 
storage.  It allows it to make an optimisation on x86_64-win64 that 
wasn't possible before due to the lack of available volatile registers.  
In packages\numlib\src\dsl.pas - before:

.Lj184:
     ...
     cmpl    $1,%ecx
     jng    .Lj188
     subl    $1,%ecx
.Lj188:
     ...

After:

.Lj184:
     ...
     cmpl    $1,%ecx
     setg    %bl
     movzbl    %bl,%ebx
     subl    %ebx,%ecx
     ...

%ebx is a non-volatile register, but the current subroutine preserves it 
and it's not currently in use, so the peephole optimizer can borrow it 
for a few instructions.

I need to double-check though... is this actually a good optimisation 
for speed?  It removes a jump and a label, which might permit other 
long-range optimisations, but it's 3 instructions that are in a 
dependency chain.

Gareth aka. Kit


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