Loop unwinding, also known as loop unrolling, is a loop transformation technique that attempts to optimize a program's execution speed at the expense of its binary size (space-time tradeoff). The transformation can be undertaken manually by the programmer or by an optimizing compiler.
The goal of loop unwinding is to increase a program's speed by reducing (or eliminating) instructions that control the loop, such as pointer arithmetic and "end of loop" tests on each iteration;reducing branch penalties; as well as "hiding latencies, in particular, the delay in reading data from memory".
Loops can be re-written instead as a repeated sequence of similar independent statements eliminating this overhead.
gcc 优化指令:-funroll-loops
A simple manual example in C Language
Normal loop | After loop unrolling |
---|---|
int x; for (x = 0; x < 100; x++) { delete(x); } //. //. //. //. |
int x; for (x = 0; x < 100; x += 5) { delete(x); delete(x+1); delete(x+2); delete(x+3); delete(x+4); } |