Search in: Word
Vietnamese keyboard: Off
Virtual keyboard: Show
Computing (FOLDOC) dictionary
partial evaluation
Jump to user comments
compiler, algorithm (Or "specialisation") An optimisation
technique where the compiler evaluates some subexpressions
at compile-time. For example,
pow x 0 = 1
pow x n = if even n
then pxn2 * pxn2
else x * pow x (n-1)
where pxn2 = pow x (n/2)
f x = pow x 5
Since n is known we can specialise pow in its second argument
and unfold the recursive calls:
pow5 x = x * x4 where x4 = x2 * x2
x2 = x * x
f x = pow5 x
pow5 is known as the residual. We could now also unfold pow5
giving:
f x = x * x4 where x4 = x2 * x2
x2 = x * x
It is important that the partial evaluation algorithm should
terminate. This is not guaranteed in the presence of
recursive function definitions. For example, if partial
evaluation were applied to the right hand side of the second
clause for pow above, it would never terminate because the
value of n is not known.
Partial evaluation might change the termination properties of
the program if, for example, the expression (x * 0) was
reduced to 0 it would terminate even if x (and thus x * 0) did
not.