Improving Performance by Pointer Disambiguation

Two pointers are aliased if both point to the same memory location. Storing to memory using a pointer that might be aliased may prevent some optimizations. For example, it may create a dependency between loop iterations that would make vectorization unsafe. Aliasing is not the only source of potential dependencies. In fact, Multiply.c does have other dependencies. In this case however, removal of the dependency created by aliasing allows the compiler to resolve the other loop dependency.

Sometimes, the compiler can generate both a vectorized and a non-vectorized version of a loop and test for aliasing at runtime to select the appropriate code path. If you know that pointers do not alias and inform the compiler, it can avoid the runtime check and generate a single vectorized code path. In Multiply.c, the compiler generates runtime checks to determine whether or not the pointer b in function matvec(FTYPE a[][COLWIDTH], FTYPE b[], FTYPE x[]) is aliased to either a or x . If Multiply.c is compiled with the NOALIAS macro, the restrict qualifier of the argument b informs the compiler that the pointer does not alias with any other pointer, and in particular that the array b does not overlap with a or x.

Note

The restrict qualifier requires the use of either the /Qrestrict compiler option for .c or .cpp files, or the /Qstd=c99 compiler option for .c files.

Remove the NOFUNCCALL preprocessor definition to reinsert the call to matvec(). Add the NOALIAS preprocessor definition to the compiler options.

Rebuild your project, run the executable, and record the execution time reported in the output. Multiply.optrpt shows:

LOOP BEGIN at Multiply.c(37,5)
Multiply.c(37,5):remark #15542: loop was not vectorized: inner loop was already vectorized

LOOP BEGIN at Multiply.c(49,9)
Peeled loop for vectorization
LOOP END

LOOP BEGIN at Multiply.c(49,9)
Multiply.c(49,9):remark #15300: LOOP WAS VECTORIZED
LOOP END

LOOP BEGIN at Multiply.c(49,9)
Alternate Alignment Vectorized Loop
LOOP END

LOOP BEGIN at Multiply.c(49,9)
Remainder loop for vectorization
LOOP END
LOOP END

Note

Your line and column numbers may be different.

Now that the compiler has been told that the arrays do not overlap, it uses idiom-recognition to resolve the loop dependency and proceeds to vectorize the loop.