Optimization of C code - c

Question

For an assignment of a course called High Performance Computing, I required to optimize the following code fragment:
int foobar(int a, int b, int N)
{
int i, j, k, x, y;
x = 0;
y = 0;
k = 256;
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++) {
x = x + 4*(2*i+j)*(i+2*k);
if (i > j){
y = y + 8*(i-j);
}else{
y = y + 8*(j-i);
}
}
}
return x;
}
Using some recommendations, I managed to optimize the code (or at least I think so), such as:
Constant Propagation
Algebraic Simplification
Copy Propagation
Common Subexpression Elimination
Dead Code Elimination
Loop Invariant Removal
bitwise shifts instead of multiplication as they are less expensive.
Here's my code:
int foobar(int a, int b, int N) {
int i, j, x, y, t;
x = 0;
y = 0;
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
t = i + 512;
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++) {
x = x + ((i<<3) + (j<<2))*t;
}
}
return x;
}
According to my instructor, a well optimized code instructions should have fewer or less costly instructions in assembly language level.And therefore must be run, the instructions in less time than the original code, ie calculations are made with::
execution time = instruction count * cycles per instruction
When I generate assembly code using the command: gcc -o code_opt.s -S foobar.c,
the generated code has many more lines than the original despite having made ​​some optimizations, and run-time is lower, but not as much as in the original code. What am I doing wrong?
Do not paste the assembly code as both are very extensive. So I'm calling the function "foobar" in the main and I am measuring the execution time using the time command in linux
int main () {
int a,b,N;
scanf ("%d %d %d",&a,&b,&N);
printf ("%d\n",foobar (a,b,N));
return 0;
}

Answer 1

Initially:
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++) {
x = x + 4*(2*i+j)*(i+2*k);
if (i > j){
y = y + 8*(i-j);
}else{
y = y + 8*(j-i);
}
}
}
Removing y calculations:
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++) {
x = x + 4*(2*i+j)*(i+2*k);
}
}
Splitting i, j, k:
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++) {
x = x + 8*i*i + 16*i*k ; // multiple of 1 (no j)
x = x + (4*i + 8*k)*j ; // multiple of j
}
}
Moving them externally (and removing the loop that runs N-i times):
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
x = x + (8*i*i + 16*i*k) * (N-i) ;
x = x + (4*i + 8*k) * ((N*N+N)/2 - (i*i+i)/2) ;
}
Rewritting:
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
x = x + ( 8*k*(N*N+N)/2 ) ;
x = x + i * ( 16*k*N + 4*(N*N+N)/2 + 8*k*(-1/2) ) ;
x = x + i*i * ( 8*N + 16*k*(-1) + 4*(-1/2) + 8*k*(-1/2) );
x = x + i*i*i * ( 8*(-1) + 4*(-1/2) ) ;
}
Rewritting - recalculating:
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
x = x + 4*k*(N*N+N) ; // multiple of 1
x = x + i * ( 16*k*N + 2*(N*N+N) - 4*k ) ; // multiple of i
x = x + i*i * ( 8*N - 20*k - 2 ) ; // multiple of i^2
x = x + i*i*i * ( -10 ) ; // multiple of i^3
}
Another move to external (and removal of the i loop):
x = x + ( 4*k*(N*N+N) ) * (N+1) ;
x = x + ( 16*k*N + 2*(N*N+N) - 4*k ) * ((N*(N+1))/2) ;
x = x + ( 8*N - 20*k - 2 ) * ((N*(N+1)*(2*N+1))/6);
x = x + (-10) * ((N*N*(N+1)*(N+1))/4) ;
Both the above loop removals use the summation formulas:
Sum(1, i = 0..n) = n+1
Sum(i1, i = 0..n) = n(n + 1)/2
Sum(i2, i = 0..n) = n(n + 1)(2n + 1)/6
Sum(i3, i = 0..n) = n2(n + 1)2/4

Answer 2

y does not affect the final result of the code - removed:
int foobar(int a, int b, int N)
{
int i, j, k, x, y;
x = 0;
//y = 0;
k = 256;
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++) {
x = x + 4*(2*i+j)*(i+2*k);
//if (i > j){
// y = y + 8*(i-j);
//}else{
// y = y + 8*(j-i);
//}
}
}
return x;
}
k is simply a constant:
int foobar(int a, int b, int N)
{
int i, j, x;
x = 0;
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++) {
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++) {
x = x + 4*(2*i+j)*(i+2*256);
}
}
return x;
}
The inner expression can be transformed to: x += 8*i*i + 4096*i + 4*i*j + 2048*j. Use math to push all of them to the outer loop: x += 8*i*i*(N-i) + 4096*i*(N-i) + 2*i*(N-i)*(N+i+1) + 1024*(N-i)*(N+i+1).
You can expand the above expression, and apply sum of squares and sum of cubes formula to obtain a close form expression, which should run faster than the doubly nested loop. I leave it as an exercise to you. As a result, i and j will also be removed.
a and b should also be removed if possible - since a and b are supplied as argument but never used in your code.
Sum of squares and sum of cubes formula:
Sum(x2, x = 1..n) = n(n + 1)(2n + 1)/6
Sum(x3, x = 1..n) = n2(n + 1)2/4

Answer 3

This function is equivalent with the following formula, which contains only 4 integer multiplications, and 1 integer division:
x = N * (N + 1) * (N * (7 * N + 8187) - 2050) / 6;
To get this, I simply typed the sum calculated by your nested loops into Wolfram Alpha:
sum (sum (8*i*i+4096*i+4*i*j+2048*j), j=i+1..N), i=0..N
Here is the direct link to the solution. Think before coding. Sometimes your brain can optimize code better than any compiler.

Answer 4

Briefly scanning the first routine, the first thing you notice is that expressions involving "y" are completely unused and can be eliminated (as you did). This further permits eliminating the if/else (as you did).
What remains is the two for loops and the messy expression. Factoring out the pieces of that expression that do not depend on j is the next step. You removed one such expression, but (i<<3) (ie, i * 8) remains in the inner loop, and can be removed.
Pascal's answer reminded me that you can use a loop stride optimization. First move (i<<3) * t out of the inner loop (call it i1), then calculate, when initializing the loop, a value j1 that equals (i<<2) * t. On each iteration increment j1 by 4 * t (which is a pre-calculated constant). Replace your inner expression with x = x + i1 + j1;.
One suspects that there may be some way to combine the two loops into one, with a stride, but I'm not seeing it offhand.

Answer 5

A few other things I can see. You don't need y, so you can remove its declaration and initialisation.
Also, the values passed in for a and b aren't actually used, so you could use these as local variables instead of x and t.
Also, rather than adding i to 512 each time through you can note that t starts at 512 and increments by 1 each iteration.
int foobar(int a, int b, int N) {
int i, j;
a = 0;
b = 512;
for (i = 0; i <= N; i++, b++) {
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++) {
a = a + ((i<<3) + (j<<2))*b;
}
}
return a;
}
Once you get to this point you can also observe that, aside from initialising j, i and j are only used in a single mutiple each - i<<3 and j<<2. We can code this directly in the loop logic, thus:
int foobar(int a, int b, int N) {
int i, j, iLimit, jLimit;
a = 0;
b = 512;
iLimit = N << 3;
jLimit = N << 2;
for (i = 0; i <= iLimit; i+=8) {
for (j = i >> 1 + 4; j <= jLimit; j+=4) {
a = a + (i + j)*b;
}
b++;
}
return a;
}

Answer 6

OK... so here is my solution, along with inline comments to explain what I did and how.
int foobar(int N)
{ // We eliminate unused arguments
int x = 0, i = 0, i2 = 0, j, k, z;
// We only iterate up to N on the outer loop, since the
// last iteration doesn't do anything useful. Also we keep
// track of '2*i' (which is used throughout the code) by a
// second variable 'i2' which we increment by two in every
// iteration, essentially converting multiplication into addition.
while(i < N)
{
// We hoist the calculation '4 * (i+2*k)' out of the loop
// since k is a literal constant and 'i' is a constant during
// the inner loop. We could convert the multiplication by 2
// into a left shift, but hey, let's not go *crazy*!
//
// (4 * (i+2*k)) <=>
// (4 * i) + (4 * 2 * k) <=>
// (2 * i2) + (8 * k) <=>
// (2 * i2) + (8 * 512) <=>
// (2 * i2) + 2048
k = (2 * i2) + 2048;
// We have now converted the expression:
// x = x + 4*(2*i+j)*(i+2*k);
//
// into the expression:
// x = x + (i2 + j) * k;
//
// Counterintuively we now *expand* the formula into:
// x = x + (i2 * k) + (j * k);
//
// Now observe that (i2 * k) is a constant inside the inner
// loop which we can calculate only once here. Also observe
// that is simply added into x a total (N - i) times, so
// we take advantange of the abelian nature of addition
// to hoist it completely out of the loop
x = x + (i2 * k) * (N - i);
// Observe that inside this loop we calculate (j * k) repeatedly,
// and that j is just an increasing counter. So now instead of
// doing numerous multiplications, let's break the operation into
// two parts: a multiplication, which we hoist out of the inner
// loop and additions which we continue performing in the inner
// loop.
z = i * k;
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++)
{
z = z + k;
x = x + z;
}
i++;
i2 += 2;
}
return x;
}
The code, without any of the explanations boils down to this:
int foobar(int N)
{
int x = 0, i = 0, i2 = 0, j, k, z;
while(i < N)
{
k = (2 * i2) + 2048;
x = x + (i2 * k) * (N - i);
z = i * k;
for (j = i + 1; j <= N; j++)
{
z = z + k;
x = x + z;
}
i++;
i2 += 2;
}
return x;
}
I hope this helps.

Answer 7

int foobar(int N) //To avoid unuse passing argument
{
int i, j, x=0; //Remove unuseful variable, operation so save stack and Machine cycle
for (i = N; i--; ) //Don't check unnecessary comparison condition
for (j = N+1; --j>i; )
x += (((i<<1)+j)*(i+512)<<2); //Save Machine cycle ,Use shift instead of Multiply
return x;
}