SYSTEM-WIDE MEMOIZATION OF ARRAY DEPENDENCE INFORMATION

Data dependence information is stored in a global or system-wide cache so as to reduce the necessity for repeated analysis of similar array reference pairs in a compiler. The data dependence cache is not limited to compilation of a single file. Rather, it can be accessed and shared by multiple users and over compilation of various files. This scheme is advantageous because of the similarity of array references among many programs. The data dependence cache is maintained and updated by determining a relative value of each record in the cache in a manner reminiscent of LRU techniques familiar to artisans in the hardware memory cache domain. The data dependence cache can be made available to multiple instances of a compiler using file locking techniques, or it can be managed by a separate dependence analysis process that responds to messages from other processes requesting data dependence information. In view of the high cost of data dependence analysis, the invention provides substantial improvements in compiler performance.