Parallelization by semantic detection of reductions

Abstract

One of the best known techniques to compile sequential programs for multiprocessors is to detect the so called reduction operations. An example of such an operation is the sum of vector elements which can be evaluated under a pyramidal scheme using the associativity property of addition, A method to detect such operations in a PASCAL or FORTRAN-like programming language is presented. This detection and the corresponding modifications to the source programs are considered as non-standard deriota-tional interpretations of the abstract syntax tree of the object programs. A by-product of this paper is to show how a denotations] specification of a nontrivial application can directly lead to a running prototype, using here the ML programming language as an’’executable specification language”.