Re: [WIP] Bare-metal register browsing

[Vladimir Prus <vladimir.prus@gmail.com>]

On 6/11/2015 11:56 AM, Yao Qi wrote:
> On 09/06/15 21:49, Vladimir Prus wrote:
>> It's a bit more generic - it means that to obtain values of any register
>> in this group, GDB should perform qXfer of the specified target object
>> and annex, using register's offset. Memory is the most typical target
>> object,
>> but in our case, we had other sorts of registers, so I'd prefer the
>> design to
>> not lock us into memory-mapped registers.
>>
>
> I don't object to it.
>
>>> Does "offset=0x4000e030" mean this register is mapped
>>> at address 0x4000e030?  If the answers of both questions are yes, is
>>> target-object="memory" still necessary?  Without it, we can still define
>>> a group of memory-mapped registers like:
>>>
>>>   <group name="io">
>>>       <reg offset="0x4000e030" name="UART1_1">
>>>       <reg offset="0x4000e034" name="UART1_2">
>>>       <reg offset="0x4000e038" name="UART1_3">
>>>   </group>
>>>
>>> and we may even can define a group of normal registers and memory-mapped
>>> registers, (even it is not likely in practise)
>>>
>>>   <group name="io">
>>>       <reg offset="0x4000e030" name="UART1_1">
>>>       <reg offset="0x4000e034" name="UART1_2">
>>>       <reg name="UART1_3">
>>>   </group>
>>>
>>> In this case, UART1_1 and UART1_2 are memory-mapped, while UART1_3 is
>>> not.  IMO, memory-map-ness is an attribute of each register instead of a
>>> group, so better to define such attribute on each register level.
>>
>> It is possible in theory, but I think it has two drawbacks.
>>
>> First, I think specifying target object is more explicit (and therefore
>> better
>> than implicit, especially for machine-oriented format) and more generic,
>> as it allows
>> us to use other target objects.
>>
>> Second, implementing such mixed registers group is extra complexity, and
>> we did
>> not find any need for that in practice.
>
> If such mixed registers group brings extra complexity in the
> implementation, then I am inclined to start from a simple one.

Yes, I think it brings extra complexity.

Thanks for your comments; I plan to update the patch to:

- Use top-level group for register browsing, as opposed to <space> element
- Do some form of testing that does not require hardware.

Thanks,
Volodya