R is a programming language for statistics that enables users to express
computation at a high level of abstraction. Until now, its only
implementation has been the R interpreter. Though interpretation is
convenient for interactive use, it hampers the performance of
computation-intensive programs. This thesis describes the design and
implementation of RCC, a compiler that translates R into C to improve
performance and enable future optimization.
RCC uses runtime libraries of the open-source R interpreter, combining
compiled and interpreted code to achieve a complete translation. Function
definitions and control flow in R are translated directly into C, while
operations such as dynamic function modification remain interpreted.
RCC-generated code in the current version achieves up to a 2.3-fold
speedup compared to the R interpreter. Hand-coded experiments suggest
that optimizing the generated code using knowledge about the runtime
libraries could improve performance by a factor of 100.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004 at 2:00 p.m.
Rayzor Hall 123
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