Augmenting Rewrite Rule Sets via Knuth-Bendix Completion

Abstract

Equality Saturation (EqSat) is a powerful technique for program optimization, systematically exploring the search space of candidate programs to overcome the phase ordering problem. However, the feasibility and performance of EqSat rely heavily on the specific rewrite rules used to derive equivalent programs. These rule sets are typically handcrafted, requiring extensive domain expertise and carrying the risk of missing valuable transformations. In this work, we evaluate Knuth-Bendix Completion (KBC) as a method for automatically generating and augmenting rewrite rules for EqSat. Our experiments show faster optimization as well as reaching better terms with previously missed optimizations.