debugging.md

Using the debugger

You are launched into the debugger either by an ebreak/sbreak instruction, or when an exception occurs while running executing instructions.

Consider the example program examples/fibs.asm:

        .data
fibs:   .space 56

        .text
main:
        addi    s1, zero, 0     ; storage index
        addi    s2, zero, 56    ; last storage index
        addi    t0, zero, 1     ; t0 = F_{i}
        addi    t1, zero, 1     ; t1 = F_{i+1}
        ebreak                  ; launch debugger
loop:
        sw      t0, fibs(s1)    ; save
        add     t2, t1, t0      ; t2 = F_{i+2}
        addi    t0, t1, 0       ; t0 = t1
        addi    t1, t2, 0       ; t1 = t2
        addi    s1, s1, 4       ; increment storage pointer
        blt     s1, s2, loop    ; loop as long as we did not reach array length
        ebreak                  ; launch debugger
        ; exit gracefully
        addi    a0, zero, 0
        addi    a7, zero, 93
        scall                   ; exit with code 0

This calculates the fibonacci sequence and stores it in memory at fibs. before and after it calculated all fibonacci numbers, it uses the ebreak instruction to open the debugger. Let's run it and see what happens:

> python -m riscemu examples/fibs.asm
[MMU] Successfully loaded: LoadedExecutable[examples/fibs.asm](base=0x00000100, size=72bytes, sections=data text, run_ptr=0x00000138)
[CPU] Started running from 0x00000138 (examples/fibs.asm)
Debug instruction encountered at 0x0000013C
>>>

In this interactive session, you have access to the cpu, registers, memory and syscall interface. You can look into everything, and most common tasks should have helper methods for them.

Available objects are:

• mem: (aka mmu or memory)
  • dump(address, fmt='hex', max_rows=10, group=4, bytes_per_row=16, all=False: Dumps the memory at address, in at most max_rows rows, each containing bytes_per_row bytes grouped into groups of group bytes. They can be printed as:
    • hex: hexadecimal, unsigned
    • int: converted to integers
    • uint: converted to unsigned integers
  • symbol(name): Lookup all symbols named name
• reg: (aka regs or registers)
  • dump(full=False) dumps all integer registers (unless all is true, then all registers are printed)
  • get(name) get register content
  • set(name, val) set register content
• cpu:
  • The CPU has the pc attribute and cycle attribute. Others won't be useful in this context.

Available helpers are:

• dump(regs | addr) dumps either registers or memory address
• cont(verbose=False) continue execution (verbose prints each executed instruction)
• step() run the next instruction
• ins() get current instruction (this reference is mutable, if you want to edit your code on the fly)
• run_ins(name, *args) Run an instruction in the current context. Symbols, jumping, etc are supported!

Example: