This patch changes MessageBuffer and TimerTable, two structures used for
buffering messages by components in ruby. These structures would no longer
maintain pointers to clock objects. Functions in these structures have been
changed to take as input current time in Tick. Similarly, these structures
will not operate on Cycle valued latencies for different operations. The
corresponding functions would need to be provided with these latencies by
components invoking the relevant functions. These latencies should also be
in Ticks.
I felt the need for these changes while trying to speed up ruby. The ultimate
aim is to eliminate Consumer class and replace it with an EventManager object in
the MessageBuffer and TimerTable classes. This object would be used for
scheduling events. The event itself would contain information on the object and
function to be invoked.
In hindsight, it seems I should have done this while I was moving away from use
of a single global clock in the memory system. That change led to introduction
of clock objects that replaced the global clock object. It never crossed my
mind that having clock object pointers is not a good design. And now I really
don't like the fact that we have separate consumer, receiver and sender
pointers in message buffers.
The eventual aim of this change is to pass RubySystem pointers through to
objects generated from the SLICC protocol code.
Because some of these objects need to dereference their RubySystem pointers,
they need access to the System.hh header file.
In src/mem/ruby/SConscript, the MakeInclude function creates single-line header
files in the build directory that do nothing except include the corresponding
header file from the source tree.
However, SLICC also generates a list of header files from its symbol table, and
writes it to mem/protocol/Types.hh in the build directory. This code assumes
that the header file name is the same as the class name.
The end result of this is the many of the generated slicc files try to include
RubySystem.hh, when the file they really need is System.hh. The path of least
resistence is just to rename System.hh to RubySystem.hh.
--HG--
rename : src/mem/ruby/system/System.cc => src/mem/ruby/system/RubySystem.cc
rename : src/mem/ruby/system/System.hh => src/mem/ruby/system/RubySystem.hh
This patch eliminates the type Address defined by the ruby memory system.
This memory system would now use the type Addr that is in use by the
rest of the system.
Expose MessageBuffers from SLICC controllers as SimObjects that can be
manipulated in Python. This patch has numerous benefits:
1) First and foremost, it exposes MessageBuffers as SimObjects that can be
manipulated in Python code. This allows parameters to be set and checked in
Python code to avoid obfuscating parameters within protocol files. Further, now
as SimObjects, MessageBuffer parameters are printed to config output files as a
way to track parameters across simulations (e.g. buffer sizes)
2) Cleans up special-case code for responseFromMemory buffers, and aligns their
instantiation and use with mandatoryQueue buffers. These two special buffers
are the only MessageBuffers that are exposed to components outside of SLICC
controllers, and they're both slave ends of these buffers. They should be
exposed outside of SLICC in the same way, and this patch does it.
3) Distinguishes buffer-specific parameters from buffer-to-network parameters.
Specifically, buffer size, randomization, ordering, recycle latency, and ports
are all specific to a MessageBuffer, while the virtual network ID and type are
intrinsics of how the buffer is connected to network ports. The former are
specified in the Python object, while the latter are specified in the
controller *.sm files. Unlike buffer-specific parameters, which may need to
change depending on the simulated system structure, buffer-to-network
parameters can be specified statically for most or all different simulated
systems.
It was previously possible for a stalled message to be reordered after an
incomming message. This patch ensures that any stalled message stays in its
original request order.
This is another step in the process of removing global variables
from Ruby to enable multiple RubySystem instances in a single simulation.
With possibly multiple RubySystem objects, we can no longer use a global
variable to find "the" RubySystem object. Instead, each Ruby component
has to carry a pointer to the RubySystem object to which it belongs.
This structure's only purpose was to provide a comparison function for
ordering messages in the MessageBuffer. The comparison function is now
being moved to the Message class itself. So we no longer require this
structure.
The processes of warming up and cooling down Ruby caches are simulation-wide
processes, not just RubySystem instance-specific processes. Thus, the warm-up
and cool-down variables should be globally visible to any Ruby components
participating in either process. Make these variables static members and track
the warm-up and cool-down processes as appropriate.
This patch also has two side benefits:
1) It removes references to the RubySystem g_system_ptr, which are problematic
for allowing multiple RubySystem instances in a single simulation. Warmup and
cooldown variables being static (global) reduces the need for instance-specific
dereferences through the RubySystem.
2) From the AbstractController, it removes local RubySystem pointers, which are
used inconsistently with other uses of the RubySystem: 11 other uses reference
the RubySystem with the g_system_ptr. Only sequencers have local pointers.
This patch is the final in the series. The whole series and this patch in
particular were written with the aim of interfacing ruby's directory controller
with the memory controller in the classic memory system. This is being done
since ruby's memory controller has not being kept up to date with the changes
going on in DRAMs. Classic's memory controller is more up to date and
supports multiple different types of DRAM. This also brings classic and
ruby ever more close. The patch also changes ruby's memory controller to
expose the same interface.
This patch tidies up random number generation to ensure that it is
done consistently throughout the code base. In essence this involves a
clean-up of Ruby, and some code simplifications in the traffic
generator.
As part of this patch a bunch of skewed distributions (off-by-one etc)
have been fixed.
Note that a single global random number generator is used, and that
the object instantiation order will impact the behaviour (the sequence
of numbers will be unaffected, but if module A calles random before
module B then they would obviously see a different outcome). The
dependency on the instantiation order is true in any case due to the
execution-model of gem5, so we leave it as is. Also note that the
global ranom generator is not thread safe at this point.
Regressions using the memtest, TrafficGen or any Ruby tester are
affected and will be updated accordingly.
