SML/NJ Version 110.31 NEWS

# Standard ML of New Jersey
Version 110.31, December 8, 2000

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> ## Warning

> > > This version is intended for compiler hackers. The version ought to be stable, however we have not run our full regression testing.

> ## Summary:

> - Socket related bug fixes.

> - Improvements to CM autoloading.

> - General cleanup in the use of CM libraries in the compiler.

> - A new x86 fp compilation strategy.

> - Removal of regmaps from MLRISC.

> ### Bug fixes

> - 1514. sockets c-library broken

> - 1582. SysErr exception connecting to socket

> - 1585. getpeername in sockets

> ### CM

> Drastically improved link traversal code, resulting is faster load times for CM and CMB.

> Changed CM tool-plugin mechanism. See new manual

> Made pickle-lib.cm and eliminated use of comp-lib.cm

> ### SML/NJ Library

> Fixed "where" clause to GraphSCCFn.

> ### MLRISC

> #### Intel x86 floating point

> As of 110.31, there is an alternative floating point code generator and register allocator for the x86. Since this is still experimental, by default this is turned off. To turn this on, do:

>          CM.autoload "$smlnj/compiler.cm";
>          Compiler.Control.MLRISC.getFlag "x86-fast-fp" := true;

> The new floating point code generator treats the x86 fp stack as 7 registers, plus one temporary, and directly allocates floating point values into these registers. Currently, fp parameter passing is still done through memory, so the new code generator only benefits floating point heavy loops. However, code compiled under the old and new code generator can coexist. The algorithm is described in this paper.

> We compared Version 110.30 compiling the PCLubIN entry in the ICFP'00 programming context.

>     			   110.30    new fp   Speedup
>          (ICFP00, PCLubIN)
>          chess.gml             22.16     20.98       5.63%
>          cone-fractal.gml       5.70      5.45       4.51%
>          cylinder.gml           1.61      1.58       2.28%
>          dice.gml               7.33      6.88       6.57%
>          ellipsoid.gml          1.35      1.30       4.16%
>          fov.gml                2.63      2.51       4.70%
>          Fractal.gml           42.08     41.03       2.56%
>          golf.gml               3.09      2.95       4.75%
>          holes.gml              3.72      3.50       6.40%
>          house.gml              1.41      1.33       5.71%
>          intercyl.gml           3.02      2.78       8.41%
>          large.gml              8.01      7.81       2.64%
>          pipe.gml               6.35      5.78      10.01%
>          snowgoon.gml           4.70      4.31       8.95%
>          spheres.gml            1.26      1.17       6.98%
>          spotlight.gml          0.71      0.68       4.69%

> By inlining Array2 in the same benchmark we get the following results:

>     			       110.30   new fp Speedup
>          chess.gml                 21.85s  21.46s  1.83%
>          cone-fractal.gml           5.82s   5.47s  6.28%
>          cylinder.gml               1.57s   1.61s -2.85%
>          dice.gml                   7.57s   6.85s 10.50%
>          ellipsoid.gml              1.33s   1.25s  6.74%
>          fov.gml                    2.75s   2.57s  7.01%
>          fractal.gml               22.64s  21.52s  5.20%
>          golf.gml                   3.04s   2.92s  4.25%
>          holes.gml                  3.66s   3.48s  5.11%
>          house.gml                  1.39s   1.29s  7.74%
>          intercyl.gml               3.00s   2.78s  7.91%
>          large.gml                  7.91s   7.82s  1.13%
>          pipe.gml                   6.44s   5.65s 13.98%
>          snowgoon.gml               4.75s   4.29s 10.53%
>          spheres.gml                1.22s   1.12s  8.36%
>          spotlight.gml              0.71s   0.68s  5.62%

> Results from other benchmarks:

>          barnes-hut            1.714     1.696        1.0%
>          fft                   0.954     0.906        5.2%
>          mandelbrot            19.91     14.99       32.8%
>          matrix-multiply(a)    47.77     45.81        4.3%
>          matrix-multiply(b)    17.04     15.42       10.5%
>          simple                 3.02      2.69       12.3%
>          tsp                    1.75      1.656       5.6%

> NOTE: Matrix multiply(b) has all bounds checking removed. Each test is run 10 times and I take the average. Overall, the numbers do not improve as much as I was hoping, except for mandelbrot. The following benchmarks compare smlnj with mlton and C:

>     		     mandelbrot fft    barnes-hut
>          sml/nj 110.30   19.91      0.96   1.71
>          sml/nj new fp   14.99      0.90   1.71
>          gcc -O          14.83
>          gcc -O6         14.01      0.68
>          mlton -O6       17.46      1.04   1.62
>          (version 200000906)

> #### Internal `regmap` Changes

> 1. Changed interface to `CELLS` and the type of `cell`, `cellkind`, `cellset` etc.

> 2. No more regmaps!! The attributes of cells, including its current color, are accessible from `CELLS` interface. Cells can now take arbitrary annotations. [They will also have a width attribute in the next go around.]

> 3. Interface of `STREAM` etc have changed (again, no more regmap).

> 4. Some MLTREE constructors, like `IF`, `BCC`, `JMP`, `CALL`, etc have been simplified. `CVTI2I` has been renamed into `SX` and `ZX` respectively, following the lambda rtl convention.

> 5. The old RA interface was getting too complicated. There are now two functors, `RISC_RA` (in ra/risc_ra.sml) and `X86RA` (in x86/ra/x86RA.sml) which abstract out from all the ugly business. The first is for RISC machines, and the second is for x86. Please let us know if you use these functors.

> 6. The cell change broke the peephole phases, because they used to pattern match on specific cell number. I (Allen) hacked up a simple tool to translate fake SML with where clauses into real ML. This makes it much easier to write the rules. Seems to work. (See Tools/WhereGen)

> Last modified: Fri Dec 8 15:15:08 EST 2000