Skip to main content

PWR035: avoid non-consecutive array access to improve performance

Issue​

Non-consecutive array access may impact performance.

Actions​

Consider using techniques like loop fusion, loop interchange, loop tiling or changing the data layout to avoid non-consecutive access in hot loops.

Relevance​

Accessing an array in a non-consecutive order is less efficient than accessing consecutive positions because the latter maximises locality of reference.

Code example​

C​

Consider the example code below to illustrate the presence of non-consecutive access patterns. The elements of array a are accessed in a non-consecutive manner. In the scope of the outer loop, for (i), all the iterations access the first row of the array. Thus, the code exhibits repeated accesses to all the elements of the first row, a total number of times equal to rows:

void example(float **a, unsigned rows, unsigned cols) {
  for (unsigned i = 0; i < rows; ++i) {
    for (unsigned j = 0; j < cols; ++j) {
      a[0][j] = 0.0f;
    }
  }
}

Fortran​

Consider the example code below to illustrate the presence of non-consecutive access patterns. The elements of array a are accessed in a non-consecutive manner. In the scope of the outer loop, do j, all the iterations access the first column of the array. Thus, the code exhibits repeated accesses to all the elements of the first column, a total number of times equal to size(a, 2):

subroutine example(a)
  implicit none
  integer, intent(out) :: a(:, :)
  integer :: i, j

  do j = 1, size(a, 2)
    do i = 1, size(a, 1)
      a(i, 1) = 0
    end do
  end do
end subroutine example

References​