US 2003/0229709 A1 · Method and system for compressing program code and interpreting compressed program code

Abstract

A computer system and method for compressing an instruction stream and executing the compressed instruction stream without decompression. The invention utilizes a new pointer instruction, i.e., an “Echo” instruction that is used to replace repeated instructions or sequences of instructions, also referred to as phrases. Replacing subsequent, repeated phrases with the Echo instruction reduces the size of the instruction stream, i.e. compresses the instruction stream. The Echo instruction generally identifies at least one literal instruction appearing before the Echo instruction and further identifies the number of instructions appearing before the Echo instruction to be repeated. In order to identify both the beginning and the end, the Echo instruction has two fields or parameters, a displacement parameter and a length or count parameter. The displacement refers to the beginning of the repeated phrase and the length provides a means of determining the end of the phrase. By providing a length parameter, no additional delimiters are necessary, e.g., no End Echo instructions are required. Omitting the End Echo instruction allows for overlapping phrases without the need for two Echo instructions. Reducing the number of instructions used significantly increases compression.

Claims36

Dependent claims

A computer system for executing a compressed stream of instructions, the stream of instructions stored in a program store, the instruction stream having literal instructions and one or more Echo instructions for repeating one or more literal instructions, each Echo instruction relating to one or more literal instructions located in the program store, the system comprising:

an execution module that executes literal instructions in the instruction stream;
an evaluation module that determines whether an instruction is a literal instruction or an Echo instruction;
an Echo module for executing the one or more Echo instructions;
and
wherein at least one Echo instruction comprises:
a first parameter that identifies the first instruction to be repeated;
and
a second parameter that identifies the last instruction to be repeated.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and system for compressing program code and interpreting compressed program code

Life of this patent

Method and system for compressing program code and interpreting compressed program code

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims36