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Provide overview documents #2

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thixotropist opened this issue Jul 28, 2024 · 0 comments
Open

Provide overview documents #2

thixotropist opened this issue Jul 28, 2024 · 0 comments
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@thixotropist
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We need some overview documents to help ghidra users get a quick estimate of what a piece of extension code is doing.

What patterns are generated when?

  • local optimization of similar scalar reads and writes, especially in initialization code
  • vectorization of simple loops
  • processing of vector instrinsic code
  • vectorization of complex loops, especially iterating transforms over arrays of structures

Group vector instructions by complexity

  • vector math and logical operations are easy
  • vector gather, scatter, slideup, slidedown, segmented, strided, and indexed ops are more confusing

Gather concepts and glossary items

  • element width, multipliers, segments, group, and all of the acronyms used in their definitions
  • what rules does a compiler follow when deciding how to vectorize scalar code - exceptions, alignment, vector register pressure, memory latency, and branch prediction? How are these options passed to the compiler and to the runtime execution environment?

Modelling

  • extract feature elements from binary code to help categorize semantics - how many reads and writes per loop, what are the likely type conversions present, is this an example of loop unrolling?
  • what should the Ghidra decompiler window show when vector instructions are found?
  • should Ghidra track the vector context registers?
  • is there a vector or functional notation that captures vectorized code better than C?
@thixotropist thixotropist self-assigned this Jul 28, 2024
@thixotropist thixotropist changed the title Provide an overview documents Provide overview documents Jul 28, 2024
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