perm filename BAIL.DOC[DOC,AIL]1 blob
sn#131811 filedate 1974-11-24 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ⊗ VALID 00006 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002 BAIL -- A DEBUGGER for SAIL
C00004 00003 I. Compile-time action
C00009 00004 II. Run-time action
C00018 00005 III. Resources Used
C00020 00006 IV. Current Status
C00022 ENDMK
C⊗;
BAIL -- A DEBUGGER for SAIL
John F. Reiser
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
November 24, 1974
BAIL is a debugging aid for SAIL programs. At compile time, BAIL
generates a file which contains symbol table, program counter, and text
file information. At execution time BAIL uses this information to interpret
debugging requests. In many respects BAIL is like DDT or RAID, except that
BAIL is oriented towards SAIL and knows about SAIL data types, primitive
operations, procedure implementation, and stack structure. In addition,
BAIL can display the text from the source or listing file which corresponds
to the program counter at a given point in the program.
Contents
I. Compile-time action
II. Run-time action
III. Use of resources
IV. Current status
I. Compile-time action
The principal result of activating BAIL at compile-time is the
generation of a file of information about the source program for use by
the run-time interpreter. This file has the same name as the .REL file
produced by the compilation, except that the extension is .SM1. If
requested, BAIL will also generate some additional code for SIMPLE
procedures to make them more palatable to the run-time interpreter.
The action of BAIL at compile time is governed by the value of
the /B switch passed to the compiler. If the value of this switch is
zero (the default if no value is specified) then BAIL is completely
inactive. Otherwise, the three low-order bits determine the actions
which BAIL performs.
bit action
1 If this bit is on, then the .SM1 file will contain the
program counter to source/listing text directory.
2 If this bit is on, then the .SM1 file will contain symbol
information for all SAIL symbols encountered in the source.
If this bit is off, then information is kept only for
procedures, parameters, blocks, and internals; i.e., non-
internal local variables are not recorded.
4 If this bit is on, then SIMPLE procedures will get
procedure descriptors, and one additional instruction
(a JFCL 0, which is the fastest machine no-op instruction)
is inserted at the beginning of SIMPLE procedures. Except
for these two changes, all properties of SIMPLE procedures
remain the same as before. The procedure descriptor is
necessary if the procedure is to be called interpretively
or if the procedure is to be TRACEd.
The B switch must occur on the binary term, not the listing or source term.
Thus:
.R SAIL or .COM PROG(7B,)
*PROG/7B←PROG
The program counter to source/listing index is kept in terms of
coordinates. The coordinate counter is zeroed at the beginning of the
compilation and is incremented by one for each BEGIN, ELSE, and semicolon
seen by the parser, provided at least one word of code has been compiled
since the previous coordinate was defined. Note that COMMENTs are seen
only by the scanner, not the parser, and that DEFINEs and many declarations
merely define symbols and do not cause instructions to be generated. For
each coordinate the directory contains the coordinate number, the value of
the program counter, and a file pointer to the appropriate place. The
appropriate place is the source file unless a listing file is being
produced and the CREF switch is off, in which case it is the listing file.
[The listing file produced for CREF is nearly unreadable.] On a non-CREF
listing, the program counter is replaced by the coordinate number if bit 1
of the /B switch is on.
The symbol table information consists of the block structure and
the name, access information, and type for each symbol.
If a BEGIN-END pair has declarations (i.e., is a true block and not
just a compound statement) but does not have a name, then BAIL will invent
one. The name is of the form Bnnnn where nnnn is the decimal value of
the current coordinate.
II. Run-time action
The BAIL run-time interpreter is itself a SAIL program which
resides on the system disk area. It must be loaded by the user, either
by a loader command or by a SAIL declaration of the form
REQUIRE "SYS:BAIL.REL" LOAD!MODULE;.
The interpreter is activated by explicit call, previously inserted
breakpoints, or the SAIL error handler. For an explicit call, say
EXTERNAL PROCEDURE BAIL; ... BAIL;. From the error handler, respond B.
Breakpoints will be described later in this section.
BAIL needs some initialization. The procedure STBAIL should be
called before the first call on the interpreter. This can be most easily
done by EXTERNAL PROCEDURE STBAIL; REQUIRE STBAIL INITIALIZATION;.
The initialization generates a .BAI file of information collected
from the .SM1 files produced by separate compilations (if any). The .SM1
files correspond to .REL files, and the .BAI file corresponds to the .DMP
or .SAV file. Like RPG or CCL, BAIL will try to bypass much of the
initialization and use an existing .BAI file if appropriate. During
initialization BAIL displays the names of the .SM1 files it is processing.
For each .SM1 file which contains program counter/text index information,
BAIL displays the names of the text files and determines whether the text
files are accessable.
Debugging Requests. When BAIL is entered it displays the text of
the current statement (if available), its block structure, and a portion
of the dynamic scope. BAIL then prints the debugging recursion level
followed by a colon, and awaits a debugging request. A debugging request
is essentially a SAIL expression followed by a semicolon, except that
IF-THEN-ELSE and CASE expressions are not allowed and certain natural
extensions to the expression syntax are allowed. The expression is
evaluated as if it had appeared in the source file at the place indicated.
The resulting value is then displayed. For example, the request
VAR1,3+VAR2; will print the values of VAR1 and 3+VAR2. The expression
!!GO (or __GO , since ! and _ are equivalent characters to both the
compiler and the debugger) causes an immediate exit from the current
instantiation of BAIL.
Breakpoints. Breakpoints are handled by evaluating a call to one
of four procedures defined inside BAIL.
procedure description
TRACE("proc name") Prints the procedure name at each entry and
exit, the parameters at entry, and the
value RETURNed (if any) at exit.
UNTRACE("proc name") Discontinues tracing of the procedure.
BREAK("location","condition", Plants a breakpoint (a call to BAIL) at
"action",mpc) location. The action at a breakpoint is
IF EVAL(condition) AND (mpc←mpc-1) LEQ 0
THEN EVAL(action); EVAL(TTY:);
UNBREAK("location") Remove a breakpoint.
Specification of procedure and location names: Since the procedure
or location may not be in the scope of declaration at the time a breakpoint
is planted, the syntax of a location is
location := label | procedure | blockname delim location
where delim is any non-identifier character (e.g., altmode, period,
,virgule,space,...). The last blockname should be the block in which the
labelαor procedure is delared. The complete search algorithm is: Search
the blocks in memory-location order of BEGINs until a block is found which
has the first blockname as its name. If there is a second blockname,
continue the search of the blocks in memory-location order, beginning with
the block which immediately follows the block which matched the first
blockname. Continue until all blocknames have been matched. This yields
some block in the program. Construct the block structure ancestry of that
block. The label or procedure must then be declared within the scope of one
of the blocks of that ancestry.
Examining variables not in the current lexical scope: The procedure
SETLEX(n) changes the lexical scope to the scope of the n-th entry in the
dynamic scope list. SETLEX(0) is the scope of the breakpoint; SETLEX(1) is
the scope of the most recent procedure call in the dynamic scope; etc.
BAIL and DDT: If BAIL is initialized in a core image which does not
have DDT or RAID, then things will be set up so that the monitor command
DDT gets you into BAIL in the right way. That is, BAIL will be your DDT.
To enter BAIL from DDT, use
PUSHI P,<address which BAIL should take as the program counter>$X
JRST BAIL$X
For example, if .JBOPC contains the program counter,
PUSH P,.JBOPC$X
JRST BAIL$X
WARNING: Since BAIL is itself a SAIL procedure, entering BAIL from the
error handler or DDT after a push-down overflow or a string garbage
collection error will get you into trouble.
BAIL and SIMPLE procedures: SIMPLE procedures cause headaches for
BAIL because they do not keep a display pointer. [Indeed, the compiler
gets lost in the following example, and does not complain:
BEGIN "LOST"
PROCEDURE A(INTEGER I); BEGIN "A"
SIMPLE PROCEDURE B; OUTSTR("THE VALUE OF I IS " & CVS(I));
PROCEDURE C(INTEGER J); B;
C(2);
END "A";
A(1);
END "LOST"; ]
BAIL tries valiantly to do the right thing, but occasionally it also gets
lost. BAIL will try to warn you if it can. In general, looking at value
string parameters of SIMPLE procedures does not work.
III. Resources Used
A. Compile-time
1. One channel. This means that REQUIREd source files may only be
nested to a depth of about 9.
2. Memory. Upto 11*(maximum lexical nesting depth) more words of
memory may be required compared with previous compilations.
3. CPU time. Approximately 0.3 seconds per page of dense text.
B. Run-time
1. Channels. Three during initialization, two thereafter. Channels
are obtained via GETCHAN.
2. BAIL uses 8 of the privileged breaktables, obtaining them by GETBREAK.
3. REQUIRE 64 STRING!PDL. Necessary if the debugging recursion
level will exceed 3 or 4.
4. Memory. (8K +((# of coordinates+127) DIV 128) + (2*# of blocks) +
(5*# of symbols)) words.
5. CPU time.
a. Initialization. Typically 4 seconds for a 30 page program.
b. Debugging requests. 0.07 seconds per simple request.
DDT response time.
C. Disk space
1. The .SM1 file for a /7B compilation is typically one-fourth the
size of the corresponding .REL file.
2. The .BAI file for a group of /7B compilations is typically
one-third the total size of the corresponding .REL files.
IV. Current Status
Top priority
1. The state of the world is determined by the values of the accumulators
and the value of the SAIL varaible !SKIP!.
2. EXTERNAL/INTERNAL linkage loses.
3. DATUM and PROPS do not work.
Medium priority
1. The LEAP operations union, intersection, and membership are not
implemented.
2. Records and references are not recognized.
3. SAIL runtimes such as CVS, CVO, etc., are not recognized.
4. Stepping by statement and ability to place breakpoints at arbitrary
coordinates.
As time permits
1. Functional arguments are not handled correctly.
2. The run-time interpreter recognizes only the first 15 characters of
identifier names; the rest are discarded without comment. The
characters which are legal in identifiers are
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
0123456789!_αβπλ∂⊂⊃∀∃→~#$\|
Notable for its absence: period.
3. Contexts are not recognized.
4. The run-time interpreter will not recognize macros.