[Vm-dev] Re: Changing CogSimulator abi

[Lars]

Hi Eliot,
it seems I am not solving the right problem. As far as I understood, we 
have to support ARM abi, because the (gcc compiled) interpreter is 
expected to be called that way. What we do within the (JIT compiled) 
machine code is up to us.

But how I understood your email is the opposite: The translated 
interpreter will always adhere to IA32 abi, and only within machine 
code, we want to push the LinkReg, etc.
How is that possible? Are there flags when compiling the c-code for ARM 
to use IA32 abi instead?

Or is my mental model still off?
Best, Lars

2013/01/28 10:28 pm Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com>:
> Hi Lars,
>
> On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:16 PM, Lars <lars.wassermann at googlemail.com 
> <mailto:lars.wassermann at googlemail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hello Eliot, hello vm-dev,
>
>     @vm-dev: I'm still sometimes working on cog ARM, but due to my
>     studies I have little time. The problem I'm working on is that
>     IA32 has a different function call ABI than ARM. While on IA32,
>     you need to push the return address, on ARM, you load it into the
>     LR-register.
>
>     A design decision to accommodate this difference in the ARM JIT
>     was to use IA32 ABI within all cog code, even when running on ARM.
>     Only when calling the (compiled) interpreter, we use ARM ABI. The
>     hope was, that this way we need to change little of the existing code.
>
>     @all: In the last days of working (spread across several months),
>     I implemented the Call opcode (which is used by cogit whenever a
>     function is called) by pushing the return address before branching
>     to the target (IA32 ABI).
>     Also, I changed the trampoline generation to ask the compiler for
>     the appropriate call opcode for the ABI (so far not committed),
>     which is either Call in case of IA32 or BL in case of ARM. I'm not
>     happy with that location for this behavior, but I don't know
>     whether there exists a better place. Also, #hasLinkRegister is
>     implemented on the compiler.
>
>     Now, that calling the interpreter has changed, I run into the
>     problem, that the simulator is expecting the stack pointer to
>     point to the return address. The simulator is assuming IA32 ABI.
>
>     How best to attribute for the changed ABI in the simulator?
>         Subclass the simulator? On which level, VMSimulator or
>     VMSimulatorLSB? That change would be orthogonal to the LSB
>     subclass (if there ever will be a MSB subclass).
>         Or introduce two classes which do know the ABI and are
>     responsible for all places where ABI is used? Also the eventual
>     changes to trampoline and enilopmart generation? Which problems
>     might arise from this design decision with respect to the
>     C-translation?
>
>
>
> I would take the same approach that Peter Deutsch took in HPS, the 
> VisualWorks VM.  The idea is to keep the Interpreter side of things 
> unchanged and change the glue code and/or the generated method 
> prologue code to keep the stack the same from the Interpreter's point 
> of view.  So when an ARM machine code method calls another ARM machine 
> code method the link register is in use, and the frame building code 
> in a frame-building non-leaf method pushes the link register as part 
> of building the frame (as one would expect), and a frameless method 
> may be able to return through the link register if it contains no 
> runtime calls, but wold have to if it does (*).  But if a machine-code 
> method calls the run-time through glue it would push the link register 
> at some point before the glue call, leaving the stack in the same 
> state as it would be in the IA32 version at the same point in execution.
>
> For example, here's the prolog for a normal method, expressed in the 
> VM's assembler:
>
> LstackOverflow:
> MoveCq: 0 R: ReceiverResultReg
> LsendMiss:
> Call: ceMethodAbortTrampoline
> AlignmentNops: (BytesPerWord max: 8)
> Lentry:
> objectRepresentation getInlineCacheClassTagFrom: ReceiverResultReg 
> into: TempReg
> CmpR: ClassReg R: TempReg
> JumpNonZero: LsendMiss:
> LnoCheckEntry:
> ... frame bulding code ...
> MoveAw: coInterpreter stackLimitAddress R: TempReg
> CmpR: TempReg R: SPReg
> JumpBelow: LstackOverflow
>
> The ceMethodAbort handles both the send miss when the inline cache 
> fails, and stack overflow at the end of a stack page or to check for 
> events.  The link register defnitely needs to be pushed for the send 
> miss.  It doesn't need to be pushed for the stack overflow (since 
> frame build code has already saved it in the return pc slot in the 
> frame), but pushing it unnecessarily can be undone by the glue for 
> ceMethodAbortTrampoline.
>
> So the abort code would become
>
> LstackOverflow:
> MoveCq: 0 R: ReceiverResultReg
> LsendMiss:
> Push: LinkReg
> Call: ceMethodAbortTrampoline
> AlignmentNops: (BytesPerWord max: 8)
> ...
>
> and in ceMethodAbortTrampoline there would be a test 
> on ReceiverResultReg so that if ReceiverResultReg is 0 (the stack 
> overflow case) the link register is written to the same stack slot as 
> it was pushed to, so that the top of stack is the return address for 
> the ceMethodAbortTrampoline call, and if ReceiverResultReg is non-zero 
> (the send miss case), the link register is pushed, so that the inner 
> return address on top of stack is the return address for 
> the ceMethodAbortTrampoline call and the outer return address is that 
> for the send call that missed.  The return addresses are used to 
> identify the method (whose selector is the selector of the send) and 
> the calsite at which the send missed.
>
> So with a little modification in the right places the Interpreter sees 
> exactly the same stack with ARM machine code as it does on IA32.  In 
> fact we can construct tests to ensure this is the case by running two 
> VMs side by side, running some test image that exercises the send 
> machinery etc.
>
> As far as the code codes it might look something like:
>
> /Cogit methods for compile abstract instructions/
> *compileAbort*
> "/The start of a CogMethod has a call to a run-time abort routine that 
> either/
> /handles an in-line cache failure or a stack overflow.  The routine 
> selects the/
> /path depending on ReceiverResultReg; if zero it takes the stack overflow/
> /path; if nonzero the in-line cache miss path.  Neither of these paths 
> returns./
> /The abort routine must be called;  In the callee the method is 
> located by/
> /adding the relevant offset to the return address of the call./"
> stackOverflowCall := self MoveCq: 0 R: ReceiverResultReg.
> backEnd hasLinkRegister ifTrue:
> [self PushR: LinkReg].
> sendMissCall := self Call: (self methodAbortTrampolineFor: 
> methodOrBlockNumArgs)
>
> StackToRegisterMappingCogit methods for initialization
> genMethodAbortTrampolineFor: numArgs
> "Generate the abort for a method.  This abort performs either a call 
> of ceSICMiss:
> to handle a single-in-line cache miss or a call of ceStackOverflow: to 
> handle a
> stack overflow.  It distinguishes the two by testing 
> ResultReceiverReg.  If the
> register is zero then this is a stack-overflow because a) the receiver 
> has already
> been pushed and so can be set to zero before calling the abort, and b) the
> receiver must always contain an object (and hence be non-zero) on SIC 
> miss."
> | jumpSICMiss |
> <var: #jumpSICMiss type: #'AbstractInstruction *'>
> opcodeIndex := 0.
> self CmpCq: 0 R: ReceiverResultReg.
> jumpSICMiss := self JumpNonZero: 0.
> backEnd hasLinkRegister ifTrue:
> [self MoveR: LinkReg Mw: 0 r: SPReg]. "overwrite send ret address with 
> ceMethodAbortTrampoline call ret address"
> self compileTrampolineFor: #ceStackOverflow:
> callJumpBar: true
> numArgs: 1
> arg: SendNumArgsReg
> arg: nil
> arg: nil
> arg: nil
> saveRegs: false
> resultReg: nil.
> jumpSICMiss jmpTarget: self Label.
> backEnd hasLinkRegister ifTrue:
> [self PushR: LinkReg]. "push ret address for ceMethodAbortTrampoline call"
> ...
>
>
> The same goes for the aborts in closed and open PICs.  Does this make 
> sense?
> (*) I'm not sure without looking at the code carefully whether any 
> frameless methods can make calls on the runtime.  If not, then this 
> issue is moot.  If so, then one solution is to not compile the method 
> frameless if it makes use of the run-time.  Another approach would be 
> to build a simple frame (just push the link register).
>
>
>     All the best,
>     Lars
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> best,
> Eliot

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