US Patent 7140006 Method and apparatus for optimizing code

The invention provides a method and apparatus for optimizing code. Embodiments of the present invention comprise, for each expression in an intermediate program representation, transparently forwarding definitions of variables in said expression as said expression is being parsed by a term rewriter, the intermediate program representation being left unchanged; determining whether a term rewriting rule exists in the term rewriter for said expression; and rewriting said expression in the intermediate program representation according to said rule.