Coloring, a versatile technique for implementing object‐oriented languages

Ducournau, Roland

doi:10.1002/spe.1022

Cited by 12 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…This section presents the technique that we chose, which is known as coloring, and extends the single subtyping implementation to multiple subtyping [Duc11a].…”

Section: Implementation Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient compilation of .NET programs for embedded systems

Sallenave¹,

Ducournau

2010

Proceedings of the Workshop on the Implementation, Compilation, Optimization of Object-Oriented Languages, Programs and Systems

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Compiling under the closed-world assumption (CWA) has been shown to be an appropriate way for implementing object-oriented languages such as Java on low-end embedded systems. In this paper, we explore the implications of using whole program optimizations such as Rapid Type Analysis (RTA) and coloring on programs targeting the .Net infrastructure. We extended RTA so that it takes into account .Net specific features such as (i) array covariance, a language feature also supported in Java, (ii) generics, whose specifications in .Net impacts type analysis and (iii) delegates, which encapsulate methods within objects. We also use an intraprocedural control flow analysis in addition to RTA . We evaluated the optimizations that we implemented on programs written in C#. Preliminary results show a noticeable reduction of the code size, class hierarchy and polymorphism of the programs we optimize. Array covariance is safe in almost all cases, and some delegate calls can be implemented as direct calls.

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“…This section presents the technique that we chose, which is known as coloring, and extends the single subtyping implementation to multiple subtyping [Duc11a].…”

Section: Implementation Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient compilation of .NET programs for embedded systems

Sallenave¹,

Ducournau

2010

Proceedings of the Workshop on the Implementation, Compilation, Optimization of Object-Oriented Languages, Programs and Systems

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“…The previous steps included abstract analysis in Driesen's framework, and simulation of the memory occupation based on large-scale class hierarchies [Ducournau 2006[Ducournau , 2008[Ducournau , 2009. In the past few years, we developed a new language, called PRM, and a compiler with an open modular architecture which makes it relatively easy to test alternative techniques.…”

Section: Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It consists of the PRM compiler, which compiles PRM source code to C code and is applied to itself. The tests consider the following techniques: (i) coloring [Ducournau 2006] which represents an extension of the single-subtyping implementation to multiple inheritance under partial CWA; (ii) binary tree dispatch (BTD) ] which requires stronger CWA; (iii) perfect hashing [Ducournau 2008] that has been recently proposed for JAVA interfaces under pure OWA, (iv) incremental coloring [Palacz and Vitek 2003] also proposed for JAVA interfaces, that is an incremental version of coloring which requires load-time recomputations, (v) caching, which amounts to memoizing the last access and might improve less efficient techniques. C++ subobjects are discussed but not tested because they have not yet been integrated in the testbed.…”

Section: Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical assessment of object-oriented implementations with multiple inheritance and static typing

Ducournau

Morandat

Privat

2009

Proceedings of the 24th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications

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Object-oriented languages involve a threefold tradeoff between runtime efficiency, expressiveness (multiple inheritance), and modularity, i.e. open-world assumption (OWA). Runtime efficiency is conditioned by both the implementation technique and compilation scheme. The former specifies the data structures that support method invocation, attribute access and subtype testing. The latter consists of the production line of an executable from the source code. Many implementation techniques have been proposed and several compilation schemes can be considered from fully global compilation under the closed-world assumption (CWA) to separate compilation with dynamic loading under the OWA, with midway solutions. This article reviews a significant subset of possible combinations and presents a systematic, empirical comparison of their respective efficiencies with all other things being equal. The testbed consists of the PRM compiler that has been designed for this purpose. The considered techniques include C++ subobjects, coloring, perfect hashing, binary tree dispatch and caching. A variety of processors were considered. Qualitatively, these first results confirm the intuitive or theoretical abstract assessments of the tested approaches. As expected, efficiency increases as CWA strengthens. From a quantitative standpoint, the results are the first to precisely compare the efficiency of techniques that are closely associated with specific languages like C++ and EIFFEL. They also confirm that perfect hashing should be considered for implementing JAVA and .NET interfaces.

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“…It is used jointly with an intraprocedural control flow analysis. Runtime structures are computed using the coloring technique [Duc11a]. Our coloring implementation takes advantage of the information generated by RTA.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Coloring is an implementation technique for object mechanisms which extends the single subtyping implementation to multiple subtyping. This technique initially proposed by [DMSV89] has been proven to be efficient and well-suited in a global compilation framework [Duc11a]. We use this technique to compute our runtime structures.…”

Section: Optimizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%