Fast kernel-switching

[plavin]

Currently, Spatter can only execute one kernel at a time, e.g. -pUNIFORM:8:1 --length=1000 will execute 1000 consecutive gather instructions. What is the best way to generalize this functionality?

Options:

Trace / Pattern

Allow users to specify a list of kernels. Spatter will loop through this list until it has completed length gathers or scatters. They could theoretically specify an entire trace if they specified length kernels. E.g.:

--length 10 --kernel G,S,S 
    => G,S,S,G,S,S,G,S

--length 5 --kernel G,S,S,G,G
    => G,S,S,G,G

Perhaps I also want to specify multiple G/S patterns, e.g.

G1: [0,1,2,3]
G2: [0,2,4,8]
S1: [0,1,2,3]

Then perhaps the input would look like this:

--length=6 --kernel G1,G1,G2,S1,G2

Which means we need to be able to quickly swap between different kernels. I'm not sure what the best way to do this would be.

Not ambitious enough?

Perhaps we need to think about a DSL for Spatter that we can use to write new patterns.