Data flow equations for explicitly parallel programs

Abstract

We present a solution to the reaching definitions problem for programs with explicit lexically specified parallel constructs, such as cobegin/coend or parallel_sections, both with and without explicit synchronization operations, such as Post, Wait or Advance. The reaching definitions information for sequential programs is used to solve many standard optimization problems. In parallel programs, this information can also be used to explicitly direct communication and data ownership. Although work has been done on analyzing parallel programs to detect data races, little work has been done on optimizing such programs. We show how the memory consistency model specified by an explicitly parallel programming language can influence the complexity of the reaching definitions problem. By selecting the “weakest” memory consistency semantics, we can efficiently solve the reaching definitions problem for correct programs.