WIL Tagged Representations

by
Daria Craciunoiu

Whirlwind is a compiler framework designed by the WASP Group at the University of Washington representing a key platform for language implementation research.

Whirlwind defines an explicitly typed intermmediate language (WIL) into which other languages are first translated. WIL provides an uniformly pointer-based model of data structures. My research project is focused on providing an option for compiling programs with the use of tagged representations, which allow mixing pointer-based data structures with non-pointer data structures. For example, a variable or object field containing a pointer to an integer can be replaced with one containing the integer directly. The benefit of this option is eliminating the cost of the indirect representation in both time and space. In this talk I will describe the use of bit tags to distinguish pointer values from other commonly occuring kinds of values, such as integers.

Advised by Craig Chambers

CSE 403
Wednesday
January 18, 2006
3:30 - 4:20 pm