The industry’s first interprocedural compiler that can automatically analyse and optimise the entire application program rather than just individual procedures is the claim made by Richardson, Texas-based Convex Computer Corp for its new Convex Application Compiler. The compiler was developed with the help of Rice University in Houston, and Convex claims that it represents the first practical application of interprocedural analysis research in an integrated, language-independent compiler product. It is claimed to compile the entire program using all available information on program flow, variables used and procedures used, and it supports both Fortran and C applications, increasing the performance of existing applications over that of conventional compilers. The Application Compiler compiles programs in the way that writers edit papers – checking each page checked carefully; checking and acknowledging the references to the terms and ideas used on multiple pages; and arranging it in an order that is most productive to the reader. Specific features of the compiler are Automatic Inlining, which removes call overhead for frequently used procedures and expands opportunities for vector and parallel optimisation; Pointer Tracking, which minimises the hindrance to optimisation of pointers in C programs; Constant Propagation, which means that the compiler has knowledge of variables that have been assigned a constant value prior to the invocation of a specific procedure and can propagate or use these values in the optimisation of the invoked procedure to improve vectorisation and parallelisation, to improve automatic inlining, and to eliminate dead code; and Procedure Cloning, performed when interface variables have different but constant values on entry to a procedure – the compiler makes a copy of the procedure, renames it, and modifies specific invocations to use the new version. It also has an Error Checking feature that is claimed to uncover common coding mistakes in Fortran that are difficult to detect with conventional compilers. The Application Compiler will be available in the first quarter of next year, but no price was given. Separately, Convex announced that ConvexAVS, its version of the Application Visualisation System developed by Stardent Computer Inc, Concord, Massachusetts would be available on its machines in the first quarter 1991; again no price.
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