GCD test
In compiler theory of computer science, A Greatest common divisor Test is the test used in study of loop optimization and loop dependence analysis to test the dependency between loop statements.
Whenever a sequential loop like for loop is made to be parallel so that it can be executed on more than one processors like in case of grid computing or cluster computing then certain dependencies are checked to know whether this loop can be parallelized or not: for instance, testing the flow (true) dependence of a statement. According to this test, by comparing the indices of two arrays present in two or more statements, it can be calculated whether it is legal to parallelize the loop or not.
Theorem
A linear Diophantine equation
a1*x1 + a2*x2 +... + an*xn =c
has an integer solution x1, x2,..., xn iff GCD (a1,a2,.., an) divides c.
E.g
2*x1 -2*x2 =1
GCD(2,-2) =2, 2 cannot divide 1. So, there is no integer solution for the equation above.
Process
Loop code in general:
for (int i=0;i<n;i++)
{
s1 a[x*i+k] = ...;
s2 ... = a[y*i+m];
}
To decide if there is loop carried dependence (two array references access the same memory location and one of them is a write operation) between a[x*i+k] and a[y*i+m], one usually need to solve the equation
x*i1 +k = y*i2+m (Or x*i1 -y*i2 = m -k)
Where 0<=i1, i2 <n and i1 != i2.
If GCD(x,y) divides (m-k) then there may exist some dependency in the loop statement s1 and s2. If GCD(x,y) does not divide (m-k) then both statements are independent and can be executed at parrellel. Similarly this test is conducted for all statements present in a given loop.
A concrete example source code in C would appear as:
for(int i=0;i<100;i++)
{
s1 a[2*i]=b[i];
s2 c[i]=a[4*i+1];
}
The GCD of (2,4) is 2 and dividend is 1. As 2 can not divide 1 properly (leaving remainder zero), there is no dependency between s1 and s2 and various other loop transformation methods can be applied.
See also
References
- Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation by Steven S Muchnick