This paper describes both the techniques themselves and our experience building and using register allocators that incorporate them. It provides a detailed description of optimistic coloring and rematerialization. It presents experimental data to show the performance of several versions of the register allocator on a suite of FORTRAN programs. It discusses several insights that we discovered only after repeated implementation of these allocators. Categories and Subject Descriptors: D.3.4 [Programming Languages]: Processors---compi l ers , optimization General terms: Languages Additional Key Words and Phrases: Register allocation, code generation, graph coloring 1. INTRODUCTION The relationship between run-time performance and e#ective use of a machine's register set is well understood. In a compiler, the process of deciding which values to keep in registers at each point in the generated code is called register allocation. Value

Chaitin and his colleagues at IBM in Yorktown Heights built the first global register allocator based on graph coloring. This thesis describes a series of improvements and extensions to the Yorktown allocator. There are four primary results: Optimistic coloring Chaitin's coloring heuristic pessimistically assumes any node of high degree will not be colored and must therefore be spilled. By optimistically assuming that nodes of high degree will receive colors, I often achieve lower spill costs and faster code; my results are never worse. Coloring pairs The pessimism of Chaitin's coloring heuristic is emphasized when trying to color register pairs. My heuristic handles pairs as a natural consequence of its optimism. Rematerialization Chaitin et al. introduced the idea of rematerialization to avoid the expense of spilling and reloading certain simple values. By propagating rematerialization information around the SSA graph using a simple variation of Wegman and Zadeck's constant propag...