[Python-Dev] opcode dispatch optimization (original) (raw)

Christian Heimes lists at cheimes.de
Wed Dec 31 18:44:27 CET 2008

Antoine Pitrou wrote:

I would like to mention that I've written a patch which enables "threaded interpretation" on the ceval loop with gcc (*). On my computer (an Athlon X2 3600+), it is good for a 15-20% speedup of the interpreter on pystone and pybench. I also had the opportunity to test it on a Core2-derived CPU, where it doesn't make a difference (I conjecture it's because Core2 CPUs have hardware-based indirect branch optimizations). It will make no difference if the interpreter is compiled with something else than gcc (I tested on Windows).

The patch makes use of a GCC feature where labels can be used as values: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Labels-as-Values.html . I didn't know about the feature and got confused by the unary && operator.

A happy new your to you all!

Christian

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