STrans: A Comprehensive Framework for Structure Transformation

Structure Data Layout Optimization (SDLO) is a prevailing compiler optimization technique to improve cache efficiency. Structure transformation is a critical step for SDLO. Diversity of transformation methods and existence of complex data types are major challenges for structure transformation. We have designed and implemented STrans, a well-defined system which provides controllable and comprehensive functionality on structure transformation. Compared to known systems, it has less limitation on data types for transformation. In this paper we give formal definition of the approach STrans transforms data types. We have also designed Transformation Specification Language, a mini language to configure how to transform structures, which can be either manually tuned or generated by compiler. STrans supports three kinds of transformation methods, i.e., splitting, peeling, and pool-splitting, and works well on different combinations of compound data types. STrans is the transformation system used in ASLOP and is well tested for all benchmarks for ASLOP.