METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR GLOBAL MINIMIZATION OF SIGN-EXTENSION AND ZERO-EXTENSION OPERATIONS

A method and computer program product, within an optimizing compiler, for the global minimization of sign-extension and zero-extension operations in generated code during compilation. The method and computer program product allows, for example, 64-bit compilers targeting the Intel IA64 architecture to improve their SPECint benchmarks by reducing the number of sign-extension and zero-extension operations in the global and intra-procedural scope, thus, speeding up the execution of the compiled program.