%0 Conference Paper %1 Ertl:1995:Stack %A Ertl, M. Anton %B Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1995 Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation %D 1995 %I ACM %K Cache Caching Interpreter Stack %P 315--327 %R 10.1145/207110.207165 %T Stack Caching for Interpreters %U http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=207165 %X An interpreter can spend a significant part of its execution time on accessing arguments of virtual machine instructions. This paper explores two methods to reduce this overhead for virtual stack machines by caching top-of-stack values in (real machine) registers. The dynamic method is based on having, for every possible state of the cache, one specialized version of the whole interpreter; the execution of an instruction usually changes the state of the cache and the next instruction is executed in the version corresponding to the new state. In the static method a state machine that keeps track of the cache state is added to the compiler. Common instructions exist in specialized versions for several states, but it is not necessary to have a version of every instruction for every cache state. Stack manipulation instructions are optimized away.

@inproceedings{Ertl:1995:Stack, abstract = {An interpreter can spend a significant part of its execution time on accessing arguments of virtual machine instructions. This paper explores two methods to reduce this overhead for virtual stack machines by caching top-of-stack values in (real machine) registers. The dynamic method is based on having, for every possible state of the cache, one specialized version of the whole interpreter; the execution of an instruction usually changes the state of the cache and the next instruction is executed in the version corresponding to the new state. In the static method a state machine that keeps track of the cache state is added to the compiler. Common instructions exist in specialized versions for several states, but it is not necessary to have a version of every instruction for every cache state. Stack manipulation instructions are optimized away.}, added-at = {2009-08-14T13:57:41.000+0200}, author = {Ertl, M. Anton}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2c635875b85fae030ef3260e501470b7d/gron}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1995 Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation}, description = {Stack caching for interpreters}, doi = {10.1145/207110.207165}, interhash = {fae69c9bdeb38d10e254ab49c4da4627}, intrahash = {c635875b85fae030ef3260e501470b7d}, issn = {0362-1340}, keywords = {Cache Caching Interpreter Stack}, pages = {315--327}, publisher = {ACM}, series = {PLDI'95}, timestamp = {2019-09-04T22:55:00.000+0200}, title = {{Stack Caching for Interpreters}}, url = {http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=207165}, year = 1995 }