Cache Behavior Lab

Overview

This assignment demonstrates how memory access patterns affect performance. You'll implement two matrix traversal functions that perform identical computation but access memory differently, then measure and explain the performance difference.

Files

• cache_lab.c - Template file with TODO sections to complete
• README.md - This file

What to Complete

1. traverse_row_major() - Sum all elements visiting row-by-row
2. traverse_column_major() - Sum all elements visiting column-by-column

Compiling and Running

Basic compilation:

gcc cache_lab.c -o cache_lab
./cache_lab

Optimization level comparison:

gcc -O0 cache_lab.c -o cache_O0 && ./cache_O0
gcc -O2 cache_lab.c -o cache_O2 && ./cache_O2
gcc -O3 cache_lab.c -o cache_O3 && ./cache_O3

Expected Output

Your program should display execution times for both traversal methods across four matrix sizes (1000, 2000, 4000, 8000). A correct implementation will show column-major traversal running significantly slower than row-major.