Performance analysis of different specifications of copy propagation transformation using machine SUIF compiler infrastructure

Code improving transformations are used by optimizing compilers to improve the performance of a program. Copy Propagation is a program transformation which finds out copy statements of the form X = Y in the program and replaces, later uses of X by Y. Since many transformations like Common Sub expression Elimination introduces copy statements, Copy Propagation can be used as a cleanup transformation. Different specifications of Copy Propagation exists in the literature and this paper attempts to do a comparative study of two of them. The paper explains and compares the two specifications and the dataflow analysis required for both. As part of the comparison, both specifications of Copy Propagation Trasformations are implemented using Machine SUIF compiler infrastructure. The paper concludes by giving a performance analysis of both Specifications in terms of the number of transformations done.