A Simple, Linear-Time Algorithm for x86 Jump Encoding

Abstract

The problem of space-optimal jump encoding in the x86 instruction set, also known as branch displacement optimization, is described, and a linear-time algorithm is given that uses no complicated data structures, no recursion, and no randomization. The only assumption is that there are no array declarations whose size depends on the negative of the size of a section of code (Hyde 2006), which is reasonable for real code.