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Re: [discuss] Support for reverse-execution
- From: Daniel Jacobowitz <drow at false dot org>
- To: Paul Schlie <schlie at comcast dot net>
- Cc: Dan Shearer <dan at shearer dot org>, gdb at sources dot redhat dot com
- Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 21:52:45 -0400
- Subject: Re: [discuss] Support for reverse-execution
- References: <20050521005845.GA15974@nevyn.them.org> <BEB40A26.A3BB%schlie@comcast.net>
On Fri, May 20, 2005 at 09:41:58PM -0400, Paul Schlie wrote:
> - Supporting HW co-simulation is certainly interesting, but fundamentally
> no different; it only extends the definition of "state" typically by
> literally exposing some of the logical CPU/I/O/Peripheral/outside-world
> state in various levels of details depending on the goals of the model,
> and/or simulation itself. (but would guess likely beyond the near term
> goals of attempting to enable GDB support for basic reversible execution?)
Why should it be? This is another reason that I consider the simulator
a perfectly reasonable place to have the logic.
Frank has contributed that sid would more readily support the sort of
snapshot-based reconstruction that you're talking about (thanks Frank).
I think that allowing the target to provide infrun with a view in which
"single step backwards" is possible and then implementing that under
the covers in the target stack would still be the way to go - but I
don't think that's a legitimate objection to supporting a smart
simulator which does it internally.
When someone implements reversible debugging in a free simulator and
wants to integrate that with GDB, they'll have the choice of doing the
remaining steps in their simulator or in GDB.
> [And suspect you'll find that most HW savvy simulation environments have
> very limited if any support for "reversible" simulation, beyond
> checkpoint-restart. As on a cycle by cycle basis, tracking and recording
> incremental state changes would typically cripple the simulation, and
> potentially even exhaust disk storage for complex models, but limited
> forms do exist, and are useful.]
You might want to read the papers on the specific simulator we're
discussing using as a starting point; you can find the white paper on
Virtutech's web site. Under the covers, of course, it's probably
checkpoint based. But it's efficient, automatic checkpointing such
that it can provide a reversible view over useful periods of time.
Complete with "HW savvy" details.
--
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery, LLC