SOME EMPIRICAL OBSERVATIONS ON PROGRAM BEHAVIOR WITH APPLICATIONS TO PROGRAM RESTRUCTURING.

The dynamic behavior of executing programs is a significant factor in the performance of virtual memory computer systems. Program restructuring attempts to improve the behavior of programs by reorganizing their object code to account for the characteristics of the virtual memory environment. A significant component of the restructuring process involves a restructuring graph. An analysis of restructuring graphs of typical programs found edge weights to be distributed in a Bradford-Zipf fashion, implying that a large fraction of total edge weight is concentrated in relatively few edges. This empirical observation can be used to improve the clustering phase of program restructuring, by limiting consideration to edges of large weight. The authors consider the effect of this improved clustering in the restructuring process by examining various means of restructuring some typical programs.