SPRUIV4C May   2020  – December 2023

 

  1.   1
  2.   Read This First
    1.     About This Manual
    2.     Related Documentation
    3.     Trademarks
  3. 2Introduction
    1. 2.1 C7000 Digital Signal Processor CPU Architecture Overview
    2. 2.2 C7000 Split Datapath and Functional Units
  4. 3C7000 C/C++ Compiler Options
    1. 3.1 Overview
    2. 3.2 Selecting Compiler Options for Performance
    3. 3.3 Understanding Compiler Optimization
      1. 3.3.1 Software Pipelining
      2. 3.3.2 Vectorization and Vector Predication
      3. 3.3.3 Automatic Use of Streaming Engine and Streaming Address Generator
      4. 3.3.4 Loop Collapsing and Loop Coalescing
      5. 3.3.5 Automatic Inlining
      6. 3.3.6 If Conversion
  5. 4Basic Code Optimization
    1. 4.1  Signed Types for Iteration Counters and Limits
    2. 4.2  Floating-Point Division
    3. 4.3  Loop-Carried Dependencies and the Restrict Keyword
      1. 4.3.1 Loop-Carried Dependencies
      2. 4.3.2 The Restrict Keyword
      3. 4.3.3 Run-Time Alias Disambiguation
    4. 4.4  Function Calls and Inlining
    5. 4.5  MUST_ITERATE and PROB_ITERATE Pragmas and Attributes
    6. 4.6  If Statements and Nested If Statements
    7. 4.7  Intrinsics
    8. 4.8  Vector Types
    9. 4.9  C++ Features to Use and Avoid
    10. 4.10 Streaming Engine
    11. 4.11 Streaming Address Generator
    12. 4.12 Optimized Libraries
    13. 4.13 Memory Optimizations
  6. 5Understanding the Assembly Comment Blocks
    1. 5.1 Software Pipelining Processing Stages
    2. 5.2 Software Pipeline Information Comment Block
      1. 5.2.1 Loop and Iteration Count Information
      2. 5.2.2 Dependency and Resource Bounds
      3. 5.2.3 Initiation Interval (ii) and Iterations
      4. 5.2.4 Constant Extensions
      5. 5.2.5 Resources Used and Register Tables
      6. 5.2.6 Stage Collapsing
      7. 5.2.7 Memory Bank Conflicts
      8. 5.2.8 Loop Duration Formula
    3. 5.3 Single Scheduled Iteration Comment Block
    4. 5.4 Identifying Pipeline Failures and Performance Issues
      1. 5.4.1 Issues that Prevent a Loop from Being Software Pipelined
      2. 5.4.2 Software Pipeline Failure Messages
      3. 5.4.3 Performance Issues
  7. 6Revision History

4.9 C++ Features to Use and Avoid

Some C++ features incur in a run-time penalty. Other features are handled completely at compile-time and thus do not cause a run-time penalty. A full discussion of which C++ features do and do not incur a run-time penalty is outside the scope of this document; discussion is available from several sources on the internet and in print.

Some features that do incur a run-time penalty are so useful in providing the desired level of abstraction and/or safety, that you should consider using them anyway. Here are some guidelines for some of the more commonly-used features:

These features have potential run-time overheads. Consider whether the benefits are worth the cost:

  • Calls to new(), although this is essentially no more or less expensive than malloc()
  • Use of the Standard Template Library (STL), mainly due to hidden calls to new()
  • Exceptions / exception handling
  • Run-Time Type Information (RTTI)
  • Multiple inheritance
  • Virtual functions (although the run-time cost is usually small)

Use these features freely, as they have little to no run-time overhead:

  • Templates
  • Operator overloading
  • Function overloading
  • Inlining
  • Well-designed inheritance. In particular, calling a member function of a derived class incurs no penalty if the object type is known at compile-time.

The following features improve performance and should be used where possible:

  • Use of const
  • Use of constexpr
  • Passing objects by-reference instead of passing objects by-value
  • Constructs and expressions that can be evaluated at compile-time versus run-time