The gem5 C++ glibc Heap Fitness Landscape
William B. Langdon, Bobby R. Bruce · 2025
Using the language independent genetic improvement tool MAGPIE (Machine Automated General Performance Improvement via Evolution of software) and logarithmic sampling, we measure the parameter fitness landscape when optimising the GNU glibc heap management of a million line C++ application, gem5. The malloc_info landscape is far smoother than is commonly assumed and savings of 11 % with no loss of runtime speed are readily obtained by both Magpie and CMA-ES.