From d623c2f5f461626e20c3dcf756f7d787292843e3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Dmitry Selyutin Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2021 05:23:18 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] docs/firststeps: instruction execution --- docs/firststeps.mdwn | 30 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 30 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/firststeps.mdwn b/docs/firststeps.mdwn index 4e984342e..8aa5a290b 100644 --- a/docs/firststeps.mdwn +++ b/docs/firststeps.mdwn @@ -152,3 +152,33 @@ __eq__ SelectableInt(value=0x5555, bits=64) SelectableInt(value=0x5555, bits=64) You can play around the test, e.g. modify the input/output registers (there are 32 GPRs, so there's a plethora of combinations possible). In the next chapter, we're going to take a deeper look and cover some bits of implementation. + +# Diving into the instruction execution + +One of interesting aspects we saw in the previous chapters is that whenever +the test executes (or, more precisely, simulates) some instructions, there's +some logic beneath these actions. Let's take a look at execution flow; for +now, we won't dive into that many details, but rather take a quick look. +We already saw that there are some logs coming from the +`src/openpower/decoder/isa/caller.py` script; but how do we end up there? +By the time of writing, all tests inside `test_caller.py` use internal +method called `run_tst_program`. This method, in turn, calls `run_tst`, +and this is the place where the magic happens. In `process` nested function, +we actually simulate that our instructions are executed one-by-one, literally +calling `yield from simulator.execute_one()`. And this method inside the +simulator instance belongs to `src/openpower/decoder/isa/caller.py` script. +Inside `execute_one` method, the most crucial part is +`yield from self.call(opname)` call; and, if we take a look inside of the +`call` method, we will see that, aside of the aforementioned log +(`log("call", ins_name, asmop)`), this function also takes care of the rest +of the magic. This includes a lot of manipulations before and after executing +instruction, but the crucial part is quite simple: +``` + # execute actual instruction here (finally) + log("inputs", inputs) + results = info.func(self, *inputs) + log("results", results) +``` + +The part of the most interest is `info.func` call; we'll take a look at it +in the next chapter. -- 2.30.2