NVCC pattern matching for popc

Accelerated Computing CUDA CUDA Programming and Performance
1

Hi,

I’ve been playing around with Numba and the llvm backend is able to generate popcnt for x64 backend from:

@_nb.njit  # compiles to popcntq https://bugs.llvm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1488
def _popcnt64(x):
    c = 0
    while x:
        x &= x - _nb.u8(1)
        c += 1
return c

but @cuda.jit is unable to generate an equivalent popc instruction. Any plans to add equivalent IR pattern matching optimizations in NVCC?

Thanks,
Steve

2

there are already popcnt intrinsics available in CUDA.

NVIDIA doesn’t maintain llvm or numba.

If you’re asking for a compiler idiom to automatically convert a code sequence in CUDA C++ to a popcnt, it’s probably best to file that as a RFE/bug as a registered developer at developer.nvidia.com

If you’re asking for something specific to llvm or numba, probably best to file as an issue at the appropriate place for those.

3

The relevant intrinsics are listed in the CUDA documentation, here:

https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-math-api/group__CUDA__MATH__INTRINSIC__INT.html

__device__ ​ int __popc ( unsigned int  x )
    Count the number of bits that are set to 1 in a 32 bit integer. 
__device__ ​ int __popcll ( unsigned long long int x )
    Count the number of bits that are set to 1 in a 64 bit integer.

Access via PTX is described in the PTX manual, here:

https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/parallel-thread-execution/index.html#integer-arithmetic-instructions-popc

9.7.1.14. Integer Arithmetic Instructions: popc
popc

Population count.
Syntax

popc.type  d, a;

.type = { .b32, .b64 };

Description

Count the number of one bits in a and place the resulting population count in 32-bit destination register d. Operand a has the instruction type and destination d has type .u32.