[fpc-pascal] code optimization

[Jonas Maebe]

On 24 Sep 2010, at 11:48, Adrian Veith wrote:

> Changing to pointers reduces the amount of multiplications for  
> accessing
> the nth element in an array - if you compare the delphi code to th fpc
> code on assembler base, this is the main difference in both generated
> codes.

Did you actually try replacing only the multiplications with lea's in  
the assembler code generated by FPC (one lea to multiply by 5 and then  
the times 4 during the load/store)? I did before posting my initial  
reply because it also seemed to be the most logical explanation to me.  
It turned out to be a red herring:

With imull $20:
# iterations:     26662054
no solution found
runtime:    10.75s

With "lea (%reg,%reg,4),%reg" followed by "movl (%xxx,%reg,4), 
%yyy" (not just for mov, but for every single memory expression that  
depends on an "imull $20"):
# iterations:     26662054
no solution found
runtime:    10.06s

Kylix 3 (~ Delphi 6.5):
# iterations:     26662054
no solution found
runtime:     6.65s

> Register allocation is on a comparable level for both versions.

Delphi keeps the "Bar" pointer in a register, while FPC spills it to  
the stack. Because Bar is used in most of the most-executed  
statements, this has a huge impact.


Jonas