perm filename BAIL.DOC[TNX,AIL] blob sn#123325 filedate 1974-10-09 generic text, type T, neo UTF8




		PRELIMINARY -- NOT FINAL -- PRELIMINARY

			John F. Reiser
			Computer Science Department
			Stanford University


	BAIL is a debugging aid for SAIL programs.  At compile time, BAIL
generates a file which contains symbol talbe, program counter, and text
file information.  At execution time BAILuses 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 implimentation, 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.

	Here is an example of the use of BAIL.










		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 
requestted, 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 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 disk area [S,AIL].  It must be loaded by the user, either
by a loader command or by a SAIL declaration of the form
REQUIRE "BAIL[S,AIL]" 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.  This is done automatically at the 
first entry to BAIL if it has not been done previously.  However, it is
sometimes convenient to do the initialization directly, especially if the
first entry to BAIL is likely to be from the error handler.  To explicitly
initialize BAIL, say EXTERNAL PROCEDURE STBAIL; ... STBAIL;.

	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) and its block structure, beginning
with the innermost block and proceding to the outermost block.  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
label or 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.  Contstruct 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.
			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.	Two channels.

    2.	BREAKSET table 18.

    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.  0.2 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

(Listed in the order of probable action.)

 1. The state of the world is determined by the values of the accumulators
    and the value of the SAIL varaible !SKIP!.

 2. The LEAP operations union, intersection, and membership are not
    implimented. [target date: 10-15-74]

 3. Records and references are not recognized. [target date: 10-15-74]

 4. SAIL runtimes such as CVS, CVO, etc., are not recognized.
    [target date: 11-1-74]

 5. Type coercion for procedure parameters is not performed.  [This is
    because BAIL uses the code of APPLY, which currently does not perform
    type coercion.  target date: 11-1-74]

 6. Functional arguments are not handled correctly. [target date: 12-1-74]

 7. Stepping by statement and ability to place breakpoints at arbitrary
    coordinates. [target date: 12-1-74]

 8. 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
	ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789!←

 9. Contexts are not recognized. [target date: winter quarter 74-75]

10. The run-time interpreter will not recognize macros.