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Towards Automatic Specialization of Java Programs

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ECOOP’ 99 — Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP 1999)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1628))

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Abstract

Automatic program specialization can derive effcient implementations from generic components, thus reconciling the often opposing goals of genericity and efficiency. This technique has proved useful within the domains of imperative, functional, and logical languages, but so far has not been explored within the domain of object-oriented languages. We present experiments in the specialization of Java programs. We demonstrate how to construct a program specializer for Java programs from an existing specializer for C programs and a Java-to-C compiler. Specialization is managed using a declarative approach that abstracts over the optimization process and masks implementation details. Our experiments show that program specialization provides a four-time speedup of an image-filtering program. Based on these experiments, we identify optimizations of object-oriented programs that can be carried out by automatic program specialization. We argue that program specialization is useful in the field of software components, allowing a generic component to be specialized to a specific configuration.

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Supported in part by BULL, and in part by Alcatel under the Reutel 2000 contract.

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Supported in part by an H.H. Powers grant from Oberlin College, and by NSF grant EIA-9806718. Author’s current address: Department of Computer Science, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254. e-mail: jll@cs.brandeis.edu

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Compose Group, IRISA, Campus Universitaire de Beaulieu, F-35042, Rennes Cedex, France

    Ulrik Pagh Schultz, Julia L. Lawall, Charles Consel & Gilles Muller

Authors
  1. Ulrik Pagh Schultz
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  2. Julia L. Lawall
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  3. Charles Consel
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  4. Gilles Muller
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Rachid Guerraoui

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© 1999 Springer-VerlagBerlin Heidelberg

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Pagh Schultz, U., Lawall, J.L., Consel, C., Muller, G. (1999). Towards Automatic Specialization of Java Programs. In: Guerraoui, R. (eds) ECOOP’ 99 — Object-Oriented Programming. ECOOP 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1628. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48743-3_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48743-3_17

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66156-6

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