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Curtis Dunham fe27f937aa arch: teach ISA parser how to split code across files
This patch encompasses several interrelated and interdependent changes
to the ISA generation step.  The end goal is to reduce the size of the
generated compilation units for instruction execution and decoding so
that batch compilation can proceed with all CPUs active without
exhausting physical memory.

The ISA parser (src/arch/isa_parser.py) has been improved so that it can
accept 'split [output_type];' directives at the top level of the grammar
and 'split(output_type)' python calls within 'exec {{ ... }}' blocks.
This has the effect of "splitting" the files into smaller compilation
units.  I use air-quotes around "splitting" because the files themselves
are not split, but preprocessing directives are inserted to have the same
effect.

Architecturally, the ISA parser has had some changes in how it works.
In general, it emits code sooner.  It doesn't generate per-CPU files,
and instead defers to the C preprocessor to create the duplicate copies
for each CPU type.  Likewise there are more files emitted and the C
preprocessor does more substitution that used to be done by the ISA parser.

Finally, the build system (SCons) needs to be able to cope with a
dynamic list of source files coming out of the ISA parser. The changes
to the SCons{cript,truct} files support this. In broad strokes, the
targets requested on the command line are hidden from SCons until all
the build dependencies are determined, otherwise it would try, realize
it can't reach the goal, and terminate in failure. Since build steps
(i.e. running the ISA parser) must be taken to determine the file list,
several new build stages have been inserted at the very start of the
build. First, the build dependencies from the ISA parser will be emitted
to arch/$ISA/generated/inc.d, which is then read by a new SCons builder
to finalize the dependencies. (Once inc.d exists, the ISA parser will not
need to be run to complete this step.) Once the dependencies are known,
the 'Environments' are made by the makeEnv() function. This function used
to be called before the build began but now happens during the build.
It is easy to see that this step is quite slow; this is a known issue
and it's important to realize that it was already slow, but there was
no obvious cause to attribute it to since nothing was displayed to the
terminal. Since new steps that used to be performed serially are now in a
potentially-parallel build phase, the pathname handling in the SCons scripts
has been tightened up to deal with chdir() race conditions. In general,
pathnames are computed earlier and more likely to be stored, passed around,
and processed as absolute paths rather than relative paths.  In the end,
some of these issues had to be fixed by inserting serializing dependencies
in the build.

Minor note:
For the null ISA, we just provide a dummy inc.d so SCons is never
compelled to try to generate it. While it seems slightly wrong to have
anything in src/arch/*/generated (i.e. a non-generated 'generated' file),
it's by far the simplest solution.
2014-05-09 18:58:47 -04:00
build_opts ruby: rename MESI_CMP_directory to MESI_Two_Level 2014-01-04 00:03:33 -06:00
configs config: ruby: remove memory controller from network test 2014-04-19 09:00:30 -05:00
ext ext: add McPAT source 2014-04-01 12:44:30 -04:00
src arch: teach ISA parser how to split code across files 2014-05-09 18:58:47 -04:00
system arm: Add support for ARMv8 (AArch64 & AArch32) 2014-01-24 15:29:34 -06:00
tests arch: teach ISA parser how to split code across files 2014-05-09 18:58:47 -04:00
util arm: Add Makefile for aarch64 build of util/m5 2014-05-09 18:58:46 -04:00
.hgignore mem: Add a wrapped DRAMSim2 memory controller 2014-02-18 05:50:53 -05:00
.hgtags Added tag stable_2014_02_15 to the changeset 459491344fcf 2014-02-15 12:44:09 -06:00
COPYING copyright: Add code for finding all copyright blocks and create a COPYING file 2011-06-02 17:36:07 -07:00
LICENSE copyright: Add code for finding all copyright blocks and create a COPYING file 2011-06-02 17:36:07 -07:00
README gem5: Update the README file to be a bit less out-of-date. 2012-09-25 11:49:40 -05:00
SConstruct arch: teach ISA parser how to split code across files 2014-05-09 18:58:47 -04:00

This is the gem5 simulator.

For detailed information about building the simulator and getting
started please refer to:
* The main website:     http://www.gem5.org
* Documentation wiki:   http://www.gem5.org/Documentation 
* Doxygen generated:    http://www.gem5.org/docs
* Tutorials:            http://www.gem5.org/Tutorials


Specific pages of interest are:
http://www.gem5.org/Introduction
http://www.gem5.org/Build_System
http://www.gem5.org/Dependencies
http://www.gem5.org/Running_gem5

Short version:
External tools and required versions

To build gem5, you will need the following software:
g++ version 4.3 or newer.
Python, version 2.4 - 2.7 (we don't support Python 3.X). gem5 links in the 
    Python interpreter, so you need the Python header files and shared 
    library (e.g., /usr/lib/libpython2.4.so) in addition to the interpreter
    executable. These may or may not be installed by default. For example,
    on Debian/Ubuntu, you need the "python-dev" package in addition to the
    "python" package. If you need a newer or different Python installation
     but can't or don't want to upgrade the default Python on your system,
     see http://www.gem5.org/Using_a_non-default_Python_installation
SCons, version 0.98.1 or newer. SCons is a powerful replacement for make. 
    If you don't have administrator privileges on your machine, you can use the
    "scons-local" package to install scons in your m5 directory, or install SCons
    in your home directory using the '--prefix=' option.  
SWIG, version 1.3.34 or newer
zlib, any recent version. For Debian/Ubuntu, you will need the "zlib-dev" or
    "zlib1g-dev" package to get the zlib.h header file as well as the library
    itself.
m4, the macro processor.


4. In this directory, type 'scons build/<ARCH>/gem5.opt' where ARCH is one
of ALPHA, ARM, MIPS, POWER, SPARC, or X86. This will build an optimized version
of the gem5 binary (gem5.opt) for the the specified architecture.

If you have questions, please send mail to gem5-users@gem5.org

WHAT'S INCLUDED (AND NOT)
-------------------------

The basic source release includes these subdirectories:
 - gem5:
   - configs: example simulation configuration scripts
   - ext: less-common external packages needed to build gem5
   - src: source code of the gem5 simulator
   - system: source for some optional system software for simulated systems
   - tests: regression tests
   - util: useful utility programs and files

To run full-system simulations, you will need compiled system firmware
(console and PALcode for Alpha), kernel binaries and one or more disk images. 
Please see the gem5 download page for these items at http://www.gem5.org/Download