Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Ken B Pierce

Andrew James Edwards

Amitabh Srivastava

Ronnie Chaiken

Hoi Huu Vo

John A Lefor

Ramarathnam R Venkatesan

Gideon Andreas Yuval

Zheng Wang

David Mitford Gillies

Hon Keat W Chan

Scott Arthur McFarling

Gregory A Eigsti

Bruce M Kuramoto

Jiyang Liu

Systems and methods are discussed that allow profile information to be reused by various versions of a program. One illustrative aspect includes a method for comparing versions of a program in binary format. The method includes finding equivalent contents in portions of two versions of the program, finding equivalent structure in the portions of the two versions, and forming a match when a portion of one of the two versions is an equivalence of a portion of the other of the two versions.

Methods for comparing versions of a program

Each component binary in a heterogeneous program is translated from a platform-specific instruction set into a set of intermediate representation (IR) instructions that are platform-neutral. The IR instructions are grouped into IR code blocks, the IR code blocks into IR procedures, and the IR procedures into IR components to create an intermediate representation hierarchy for the program. An application program interface is provided that permits user access to the IR hierarchy for instrumentation, optimization, navigation, and manipulation of the IR hierarchy. The transformed IR hierarchy is then translated into platform-specific instructions and output as a modified binary. The user can designate a different platform for the output translation of a code block than the platform for which the code block was originally written. Prologue and epilog code is added to contiguous blocks that are translated into different architectures. The modified binary can be iterated through the translation and transformation process to produce multiple versions of the heterogeneous program.

Translation and transformation of heterogeneous programs

An application program interface (API) into an hierarchical intermediate representation (IR) of a heterogeneous program enables the navigation and modification of the IR at all levels of the hierarchy. Additional functions provide information about the IR that can be employed by a user in understanding the logic flow of the program and by an output translator to convert the IR into blocks of platform-specific instructions for a new version of the heterogeneous program. The API functions are also utilized by pre-defined program tools to instrument and optimize the IR, and thus the heterogeneous program created from the IR.

Application program interface for transforming heterogeneous programs

Pre-defined performance tools enable instrumentation and optimization of a heterogeneous program by modifying a platform-neutral intermediate representation (IR) of the program. The intermediate representation is hierarchy of base elements that correspond to instructions, code blocks, procedures and components within the program. Each base element exports an application program interface that provides for navigation, querying and modification of the corresponding element in the hierarchy. An application program interface for the entire intermediate representation includes the application program interfaces for the individual elements along with additional functionality. A user can request instrumentation and optimization of any level of the intermediate representation hierarchy and the performance tools perform the required modifications to the intermediate representation. When a modification requires inserting instructions, the performance tools add prologue and epilog code to connect the inserted instructions with the original intermediate representation instructions. When the intermediate representation instructions are translated into platform-specific instructions and executed, the modifications made to the intermediate representation provide the instrumentation and/or optimization of the heterogeneous program.

Instrumentation and optimization tools for heterogeneous programs

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Ken B Pierce