Subject: Re: this is optimization?y
To: OKRA AT max DOT tiac DOT net (Kimberley Burchett)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 01:33:31 -0600 (CDT)
Cc: collison AT sw DOT stratus DOT com, djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
From: mcastle AT umr DOT edu (Mike Castle)

Amazingly enough Kimberley Burchett said:
>   I'm thinking of compiling to asm, running that through an asm optimizer
> for the 80x86 and then finishing compilation.  Problem is, the only asm
> optimizer I know of (OptAsm) is commercial and most likely won't recognize
> AT&T syntax.  Hm... writing that kind of thing sounds interesting. 
> Anybody know where I might find some kind of theory on optimizations? :)
> 							Kim

Might try "gso" Gnu SuperOptimizer.  It was an attempt by someone
to write an exhaustive optimizer that goes through every possible
combination (or rather, reasonable combination) of op codes to
see which should run fastest (and produce the same output,
natch).  It's available as a standalone program last I saw, and
not part of any compiler.  

Should be available on prep.ai.mit.edu, I suppose.  If not, try
archie.  386 is one of the architectures it supports.  

Never used it myself, just heard about it.

Oh, it also only works on functions, no whole files, as it's time
consuming.  From what I understand, anyway.

Hope it helps.
mrc
-- 
Mike Castle .-=NEXUS=-.  Life is like a clock:  You can work constantly
  mcastle AT cs DOT umr DOT edu     and be right all the time, or not work at all
   mcastle AT umr DOT edu       and be right at least twice a day.  -- mrc
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