Targets look like libm5_debug.so. This target can be dynamically
linked into another C++ program and provide just about all of the M5
features. Additionally, this library is a standalone module that can
be imported into python with an "import libm5_debug" type command
line.
This should allow m5 to be more easily embedded into other simulators.
The m5 binary adds a simple main function which then calls into the m5
libarary to start the simulation. In order to make this work
correctly, it was necessary embed python code directly into the
library instead of the zipfile hack. This is because you can't just
append the zipfile to the end of a library the way you can a binary.
As a result, Python files that are part of the m5 simulator are now
compile, marshalled, compressed, and then inserted into the library's
data section with a certain symbol name. Additionally, a new Importer
was needed to allow python to get at the embedded python code.
Small additional changes include:
- Get rid of the PYTHONHOME stuff since I don't think anyone ever used
it, and it just confuses things. Easy enough to add back if I'm wrong.
- Create a few new functions that are key to initializing and running
the simulator: initSignals, initM5Python, m5Main.
The original code for creating libm5 was inspired by a patch Michael
Adler, though the code here was done by me.
