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Stack caching for interpreters

Author:

M. Anton ErtlAuthors Info & Claims

PLDI '95: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1995 conference on Programming language design and implementation

Pages 315 - 327

https://doi.org/10.1145/207110.207165

Published: 01 June 1995 Publication History

Abstract

An interpreter can spend a significant part of its execution time on accessing arguments of virtual machine instructions. This paper explores two methods to reduce this overhead for virtual stack machines by caching top-of-stack values in (real machine) registers. The dynamic method is based on having, for every possible state of the cache, one specialized version of the whole interpreter; the execution of an instruction usually changes the state of the cache and the next instruction is executed in the version corresponding to the new state. In the static method a state machine that keeps track of the cache state is added to the compiler. Common instructions exist in specialized versions for several states, but it is not necessary to have a version of every instruction for every cache state. Stack manipulation instructions are optimized away.

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Cited By

Larose OKaleba SBurchell HMarr S(2023)AST vs. Bytecode: Interpreters in the Age of Meta-CompilationProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36228087:OOPSLA2(318-346)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3622808
Reijers NShih C(2019)Improved Ahead-of-time Compilation of Stack-based JVM Bytecode on Resource-constrained DevicesACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/334117015:3(1-44)Online publication date: 13-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3341170
Reijers NShih C(2018)CapeVMProceedings of the 16th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems10.1145/3274783.3274842(250-263)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3274783.3274842
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Stack caching for interpreters
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
      1. Interpreters
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language types

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

PLDI '95: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1995 conference on Programming language design and implementation

June 1995

335 pages

ISBN:0897916972

DOI:10.1145/207110

Chairman:
David W. Wall
Digital—Western Research Laboratory

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 30, Issue 6
June 1995
327 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/223428
Editors:
Brent T. Hailpern
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heoghts, NY
,
Richard L. Wexelblat
IRS IS:AO, Washington, DC
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1995 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGPLAN: ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 June 1995

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PLDI95: ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 18 - 21, 1995

California, La Jolla, USA

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PLDI '95 Paper Acceptance Rate 28 of 105 submissions, 27%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 406 of 2,067 submissions, 20%

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Cited By

Larose OKaleba SBurchell HMarr S(2023)AST vs. Bytecode: Interpreters in the Age of Meta-CompilationProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36228087:OOPSLA2(318-346)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3622808
Reijers NShih C(2019)Improved Ahead-of-time Compilation of Stack-based JVM Bytecode on Resource-constrained DevicesACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/334117015:3(1-44)Online publication date: 13-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3341170
Reijers NShih C(2018)CapeVMProceedings of the 16th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems10.1145/3274783.3274842(250-263)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3274783.3274842
Reijers NShih CGunningberg PVoigt TMottola LLu C(2017)Ahead-of-Time Compilation of Stack-Based JVM Bytecode on Resource-Constrained DevicesProceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Embedded Wireless Systems and Networks10.5555/3108009.3108022(84-95)Online publication date: 20-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3108009.3108022
Wimmer CJovanovic VEckstein EWürthinger TWu PHack S(2017)One compiler: deoptimization to optimized codeProceedings of the 26th International Conference on Compiler Construction10.1145/3033019.3033025(55-64)Online publication date: 5-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3033019.3033025
Rohou ESwamy BSeznec AOlukotun KSmith AHundt RMars J(2015)Branch prediction and the performance of interpretersProceedings of the 13th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization10.5555/2738600.2738614(103-114)Online publication date: 7-Feb-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2738600.2738614
Rohou ESwamy BSeznec A(2015)Branch prediction and the performance of interpreters — Don't trust folklore2015 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization (CGO)10.1109/CGO.2015.7054191(103-114)Online publication date: Feb-2015
https://doi.org/10.1109/CGO.2015.7054191
Marlet R(2013)BibliographyProgram Specialization10.1002/9781118576984.biblio(487-522)Online publication date: 5-Feb-2013
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118576984.biblio
Brunthaler S(2010)Efficient interpretation using quickeningACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1899661.186963345:12(1-14)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1899661.1869633
Brunthaler SClinger W(2010)Efficient interpretation using quickeningProceedings of the 6th symposium on Dynamic languages10.1145/1869631.1869633(1-14)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1869631.1869633
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