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Issue created by <a href="https://gitlab.rtems.org/sebhub">Sebastian Huber</a>: <a href="https://gitlab.rtems.org/rtems/tools/rtems-source-builder/-/work_items/203">#203</a>
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<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;" align="initial">The GDB simulator which this tool builds carries four defects. Three of them
make the MIPS simulator unusable for an operating system, and the fourth is in
<code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; margin-top: 0px; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">sim/common</code> and reaches every target which slips simulator time. None of them
is reachable from a bare metal test program, which is why the simulator has
carried them.</p>
<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;" align="initial"><code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; margin-top: 0px; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">sim_events_deschedule()</code> in <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">sim/common/sim-events.c</code> asserts that a non empty
event queue implies a non negative time from event. That is not an invariant.
<code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">sim_events_slip()</code>, which the MIPS port calls for every branch delay slot,
decrements the time from event unconditionally, so the time can pass an event
which is still queued. A handler which deschedules another overdue event then
aborts the simulation. Two timers are enough to reach it.</p>
<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;" align="initial"><code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; margin-top: 0px; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">check_mf_hilo()</code> in <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">sim/mips/mips.igen</code> calls <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">sim_engine_abort()</code> when a
<code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">mfhi</code> or <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">mflo</code> reads a value the ISA leaves UNPREDICTABLE. RTEMS saves HI and
LO unconditionally on interrupt entry, so it reads them at an arbitrary
instruction boundary. Every clock tick which lands in multiply or divide heavy
code aborts. The simulator resumes on the faulting instruction, which raises the
same condition again.</p>
<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;" align="initial"><code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; margin-top: 0px; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">signal_exception()</code> in <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">sim/mips/interp.c</code> computes <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">CAUSE</code>, <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">SR</code> and <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">EPC</code> for
a reserved instruction, points <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">PC</code> at the exception handler and then assigns
<code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">PC = EPC</code> and discards all of it, so an operating system which would handle the
exception never runs. The compiler emits <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">rdhwr $3, $29</code> to read the thread
pointer for every access to a thread-local object on every MIPS target, and the
R3900 lacks that instruction. The address error cases immediately above do not
discard the exception and say so in a comment.</p>
<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;" align="initial">The simulator also never recognises a software interrupt request, so a BSP
cannot raise an interrupt in software.</p>
<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;" align="initial">Measured on the RTEMS test suite for <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; margin-top: 0px; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">mips/jmr3904</code>. The <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">mfhi</code> abort hung all
thirteen FAT tests, at 78 minutes of timeouts and about 313 GB of standard error
per suite run. One of them, <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">fatfs_fserror</code>, went from a 360 s timeout to 0.20 s
and 86 bytes once the abort became a warning. The reserved instruction abort
produced 620 million lines, about 23 GB, per suite run from four validation
executables.</p>
<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;" align="initial">The four patches are posted upstream:</p>
<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;" align="initial"><a href="https://inbox.sourceware.org/gdb-patches/20260816234357.278358-1-sebastian.huber@embedded-brains.de/T/#t" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank" style="margin-top: 0px;">https://inbox.sourceware.org/gdb-patches/20260816234357.278358-1-sebastian.huber@embedded-brains.de/T/#t</a></p>
<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;" align="initial">Until they land in binutils-gdb, carry them here. The GDB source is pinned in
<code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; margin-top: 0px; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">rtems/config/tools/rtems-gdb-head.cfg</code>, which every architecture that builds
GDB from head includes, so a <code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">%patch add gdb -p1 <url></code> for each patch after the
<code style="font-size: 90%; color: #18171d; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: #ececef; border-radius: .25rem; font-weight: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: break-spaces; font-family: "GitLab Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "Menlo", "DejaVu Sans Mono", "Liberation Mono", "Consolas", "Ubuntu Mono", "Courier New", "andale mono", "lucida console", monospace; font-variant-ligatures: none; word-break: keep-all; padding: 0.125rem 0.25rem;">%source set</code> covers them all. The patches touch the simulator only.</p>
<p dir="auto" style="color: #3a383f; margin: 0px;" align="initial">This description was created with Claude Code assistance.</p>
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