A Framework for End-to-End Evaluation of Register Allocators

We present RALF, a framework for end-to-end evaluation of register allocators. Built on top of gcc, RALF enables evaluation and comparison of register allocators in the setting of an industrialstrength compiler. RALF supports modular plug-and-play of register allocators without modifying the compiler implementation at all. RALF provides any plugged-in register allocator with an intermediate program representation that is independent of the data structures of the framework. In return, the register allocator provides RALF with a set of register allocation directives. The contract between RALF and a register allocator is given by requirements on the intermediate program representation and the register allocation directives. RALF checks that the produced directives satisfy the requirements, thereby helping with finding bugs in a register allocator. We demonstrate the versatility of RALF by presenting our experiments with six different register allocators.