06/20/2017

Compiler Technologies for Understanding Legacy Scientific Code

A case study on an ACME land module.

The Science

We present a procedure to use compiler-based technologies to better understand complex scientific code. The approach requires no extra software installation and configuration and its software analysis can be transparent to developers and users.

The Impact

We designed a sample code to illustrate the data collection and analysis procedure from compiler technologies and showed a case study that used the information from interprocedure analysis to analyze a scientific function module extracted from an Earth System Model. We believe this study provides a new path to better understand legacy scientific code.

Summary

The complexity of software systems has become a barrier for scientific model development and software modernization. In this study, we present a procedure to use compiler-based technologies to better understand complex scientific code. The approach requires no extra software installation and configuration and its software analysis can be transparent to developers and users. We believe this study provides a new path to better understand legacy scientific code.

Principal Investigator(s)

Dali Wang
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Funding

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research supported this research as part of the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project of the Earth System Modeling (ESM) program.

References

Wang, D., Y. Pei, O. Hernandez, W. Wu, Z. Yao, Y. Kim, M. Wolfe, R. Kitchen. “Compiler Technologies for Understanding Legacy Scientific Code.” Procedia Computer Science, 108, 2418-2422 (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.procs.2017.05.264