PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF C++ COMPILERS

Abstract. We present techniques and tools for performance evaluation of C++ compilers. The analysis is based on a collection of 3500 synthetic benchmark programs and includes five popular compilers: Imprise Borland C++ 5.5, Intel C/C++ Compiler 4.5, Metrowerks CodeWarrior 5.3, Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, and Redhat Cygwin b20 (based on GNU compiler tools). The compilers are compared using performance indicators that include compilation speed, memory consumption, and execution time for various compilation parameters. We will present a spectrum of measurements and use them to derive compiler performance indicators and compare compiler performance.

The presentation will also outline the design and use of two tools necessary for compiler performance measurement. Benchmaker 1 is a generator of synthetic programs based on a recursive expansion method. Benchmaker 2 is a generator of synthetic workloads based on random combination of procedural and object-oriented kernels.