All good compilers do this today. They use heuristics to guess what the likely outcome of branches, but you can provide them specific information with profile guided optimization, or with manual branch hits (the __builtin_expect I used in the example above is one such hint).
Similarly, you can annotate certain functions or paths "hot" or "cold", and compilers even understand that functions like abort() are cold (they can be called at most once, after all) and hence paths leading up to them are also cold.
Similarly, JIT compilers use the runtime observed branching behavior to organize branches so that fall-through is the common case.
Similarly, you can annotate certain functions or paths "hot" or "cold", and compilers even understand that functions like abort() are cold (they can be called at most once, after all) and hence paths leading up to them are also cold.
Similarly, JIT compilers use the runtime observed branching behavior to organize branches so that fall-through is the common case.