x86: operand types handling in gas
Series of patches to refactor operand type handling in the x86 assembler for better memory usage and cache utilization.
Jan Beulich proposes a four-patch series to refactor how operand types are handled in the x86 assembler (gas). The overarching goal is to reduce the memory footprint of instruction templates and improve cache locality. The patches progressively introduce changes, culminating in moving operand type definitions out of the main instruction template structure, thereby reducing redundancy and memory waste.
In Details
This is the cover letter for a four-patch series aimed at optimizing the x86 assembler (gas) by refactoring its operand type handling. The core motivation is to decrease the significant memory overhead associated with instruction templates, which currently leads to poor cache utilization. The series' strategy involves copying operand types to a global structure, ensuring correctness during this transition, and finally moving the data out of the insn_template to allow for deduplication and consolidation.
- gas
- The GNU Assembler, part of the GNU toolchain, responsible for converting assembly language code into machine code.
- operand types
- The classification of data that an instruction operates on (e.g., register, immediate value, memory address).
- insn_template
- A data structure that defines the format, operands, and encoding details of an assembly instruction.
- cache locality
- The tendency of a processor to access the same set of memory locations repeatedly over a short interval.
- cache utilization
- The efficiency with which the CPU cache is used to store and retrieve frequently accessed data.