Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!brchh104!brchs1!bnr.ca!rice.edu!sun-spots-request
From: pisces!vanroy@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: SPARC assembler takes a LONG time
Keywords: No Digest Subjects in Unmoderated Mode
Message-ID: <3399@brchh104.bnr.ca>
Date: 4 Jun 91 18:40:00 GMT
Sender: news@brchh104.bnr.ca
Organization: Sunspots, Psuedo-Unmoderated
Lines: 16
Approved: sun-spots@rice.edu
X-Original-Date:    20 May 91 22:35:37 GMT

Assembling a SPARC assembly file that is 8 Meg long takes several hours
of clock time (around 40 minutes of CPU time) and needs 72 Meg of virtual
space (of which only 3-6 Meg are resident at any time).  The assembly runs
fast at first (using >80 % of cpu cycles), but slows to a trickle ( <10% of
cpu cycles) after about 20 cpu minutes, on an otherwise unloaded machine.
Is it thrashing?  How in the name of ?$%&! can an assembler thrash?  This is
running under cc on a SPARCstation 1+ with 40 Meg internal memory and 150 Meg
swap space.

Can anyone explain this behavior?  The assembly file uses a large number
of local labels (about 56 thousand), but is otherwise rather vanilla.

Thanks for any pointers,
	Peter Van Roy
	vanroy@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu