Profile-driven data layout optimization

One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions for performing a method for optimizing the data layout of software comprising a set of object class definitions, the method comprising:

• instrumenting the software to generate profile data indicating how frequently data members of the object class definitions are referenced in memory;
• grouping the data members of the object class definitions into groups according to how frequently the data members of the object class definitions are referenced in memory, wherein the groups comprise a more frequently referenced group and a less frequently referenced group;
• associating metadata indicative of the groups with the set of object class definitions;
• and
• at runtime, consulting the metadata indicative of the groups to determine how to arrange the data members within memory, placing the data members in the more frequently referenced group in a first unit of memory and the data members in the less frequently referenced group in a second unit of memory separately loadable from the first unit of memory into primary memory.

One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions for performing a method of monitoring affinity among a plurality of data members of an object class in a memory system, the method comprising:

• constructing a table indicating how many times data members of the object were referenced during each of a plurality of time periods during profiling;
• computing an affinity matrix for the object class with a dot product operation, wherein the affinity matrix indicates an affinity between a first data member of the object and a second data member of the object;
• and
• displaying the affinity matrix as a graph for consideration by a user.