Fixing an issue with regStats not calling the parent class method
for most SimObjects in Gem5. This causes issues if one adds new
stats in the base class (since they are never initialized properly!).
Change-Id: Iebc5aa66f58816ef4295dc8e48a357558d76a77c
Reviewed-by: Andreas Sandberg <andreas.sandberg@arm.com>
This patch adds support to optionally capture the virtual address and asid
for load/store instructions in the elastic traces. If they are present in
the traces, Trace CPU will set those fields of the request during replay.
This patch replaces the booleans that specified the elastic trace record
type with an enum type. The source of change is the proto message for
elastic trace where the enum is introduced. The struct definitions in the
elastic trace probe listener as well as the Trace CPU replace the boleans
with the proto message enum.
The patch does not impact functionality, but traces are not compatible with
previous version. This is preparation for adding new types of records in
subsequent patches.
The elastic trace is a type of probe listener and listens to probe points
in multiple stages of the O3CPU. The notify method is called on a probe
point typically when an instruction successfully progresses through that
stage.
As different listener methods mapped to the different probe points execute,
relevant information about the instruction, e.g. timestamps and register
accesses, are captured and stored in temporary InstExecInfo class objects.
When the instruction progresses through the commit stage, the timing and the
dependency information about the instruction is finalised and encapsulated in
a struct called TraceInfo. TraceInfo objects are collected in a list instead
of writing them out to the trace file one a time. This is required as the
trace is processed in chunks to evaluate order dependencies and computational
delay in case an instruction does not have any register dependencies. By this
we achieve a simpler algorithm during replay because every record in the
trace can be hooked onto a record in its past. The instruction dependency
trace is written out as a protobuf format file. A second trace containing
fetch requests at absolute timestamps is written to a separate protobuf
format file.
If the instruction is not executed then it is not added to the trace.
The code checks if the instruction had a fault, if it predicated
false and thus previous register values were restored or if it was a
load/store that did not have a request (e.g. when the size of the
request is zero). In all these cases the instruction is set as
executed by the Execute stage and is picked up by the commit probe
listener. But a request is not issued and registers are not written.
So practically, skipping these should not hurt the dependency modelling.
If squashing results in squashing younger instructions, it may happen that
the squash probe discards the inst and removes it from the temporary
store but execute stage deals with the instruction in the next cycle which
results in the execute probe seeing this inst as 'new' inst. A sequence
number of the last processed trace record is used to trap these cases and
not add to the temporary store.
The elastic instruction trace and fetch request trace can be read in and
played back by the TraceCPU.
The probe patch is motivated by the desire to move analytical and trace code
away from functional code. This is achieved by the probe interface which is
essentially a glorified observer model.
What this means to users:
* add a probe point and a "notify" call at the source of an "event"
* add an isolated module, that is being used to carry out *your* analysis (e.g. generate a trace)
* register that module as a probe listener
Note: an example is given for reference in src/cpu/o3/simple_trace.[hh|cc] and src/cpu/SimpleTrace.py
What is happening under the hood:
* every SimObject maintains has a ProbeManager.
* during initialization (src/python/m5/simulate.py) first regProbePoints and
the regProbeListeners is called on each SimObject. this hooks up the probe
point notify calls with the listeners.
FAQs:
Why did you develop probe points:
* to remove trace, stats gathering, analytical code out of the functional code.
* the belief that probes could be generically useful.
What is a probe point:
* a probe point is used to notify upon a given event (e.g. cpu commits an instruction)
What is a probe listener:
* a class that handles whatever the user wishes to do when they are notified
about an event.
What can be passed on notify:
* probe points are templates, and so the user can generate probes that pass any
type of argument (by const reference) to a listener.
What relationships can be generated (1:1, 1:N, N:M etc):
* there isn't a restriction. You can hook probe points and listeners up in a
1:1, 1:N, N:M relationship. They become useful when a number of modules
listen to the same probe points. The idea being that you can add a small
number of probes into the source code and develop a larger number of useful
analysis modules that use information passed by the probes.
Can you give examples:
* adding a probe point to the cpu's commit method allows you to build a trace
module (outputting assembler), you could re-use this to gather instruction
distribution (arithmetic, load/store, conditional, control flow) stats.
Why is the probe interface currently restricted to passing a const reference:
* the desire, initially at least, is to allow an interface to observe
functionality, but not to change functionality.
* of course this can be subverted by const-casting.
What is the performance impact of adding probes:
* when nothing is actively listening to the probes they should have a
relatively minor impact. Profiling has suggested even with a large number of
probes (60) the impact of them (when not active) is very minimal (<1%).
