Appeal No. 2001-0653
Application 08/820,736
We affirm-in-part.
BACKGROUND
The disclosed invention relates to an optimizing compiler
that uses profile data. Whenever a modification is made to a
procedure that causes a change to its flow control chart, the
profile information previously gathered for the procedure will
often be at least partially invalid or incomplete (spec. at 13).
Prior art compilers are unable to use existing profile data in
such cases, and must generate new profile data for the whole
program each time a procedure is modified (spec. at 13). With
large programs, the time and expense involved in re-profiling the
program each time a minor bug fix occurs may be significant
(spec. at 3-4). The present invention allows the use of existing
profile information even if source code modifications have taken
place by identifying invalid profile information and skipping
profile data of only those procedures (spec. at 13-14).
Claim 1 is reproduced below.
1. A program product, said program product comprising:
storage media; and
an instrumented executable program module stored on
said storage media, said module comprising a mechanism that
causes profile information to be generated into at least one
procedure specific data storage area each time an
instrumented code block is executed.
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