Sound Approximation of Programs with Elementary Functions

Abstract: Elementary function calls are a common feature in numerical programs. While their implementions in library functions are highly optimized, their computation is nonetheless very expensive compared to plain arithmetic. Full accuracy is, however, not always needed. Unlike arithmetic, where the performance difference between for example single and double precision floating-point arithmetic is relatively small, elementary function calls provide a much richer tradeoff space between accuracy and efficiency. Navigating this space is challenging. First, generating approximations of elementary function calls which are guaranteed to satisfy accuracy error bounds is highly nontrivial. Second, the performance of such approximations generally depends on several parameters which are unintuitive to choose manually, especially for non-experts. We present a fully automated approach and tool which approximates elementary function calls inside small programs while guaranteeing overall user provided error bounds. Our tool leverages existing techniques for roundoff error computation and approximation of individual elementary function calls, and provides automated selection of many parameters. Our experiments show that significant efficiency improvements are possible in exchange for reduced, but guaranteed, accuracy.