1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 870 871 872 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882 883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911 912 913 914 915 916 917 918 919 920 921 922 923 924 925 926 927 928 929 930 931 932 933 934 935 936 937 938 939 940 941 942 943 944 945 946 947 948 949 950 951 952 953 954 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 964 965 966 967 968 969 970 971 972 973 974 975 976 977 978 979 980 981 982 983 984 985 986 987 988 989 990 991 992 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008 1009 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 1024 1025 1026 1027 1028 1029 1030 1031 1032 1033 1034 1035 1036 1037 1038 1039 1040 1041 1042 1043 1044 1045 1046 1047 1048 1049 1050 1051 1052 1053 1054 1055 1056 1057 1058 1059 1060 1061 1062 1063 1064 1065 1066 1067 1068 1069 1070 1071 1072 1073 1074 1075 1076 1077 1078 1079 1080 1081 1082 1083 1084 1085 1086 1087 1088 1089 1090 1091 1092 1093 1094 1095 1096 1097 1098 1099 1100 1101 1102 1103 1104 1105 1106 1107 1108 1109 1110 1111 1112 1113 1114 1115 1116 1117 1118 1119 1120 1121 1122 1123 1124 1125 1126 1127 1128 1129 1130 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 1142 1143 1144 1145 1146 1147 1148 1149 1150 1151 1152 1153 1154 1155 1156 1157 1158 1159 1160 1161 1162 1163 1164 1165 1166 1167 1168 1169 1170 1171 1172 1173 1174 1175 1176 1177 1178 1179 1180 1181 1182 1183 1184 1185 1186 1187 1188 1189 1190 1191 1192 1193 1194 1195 1196 1197 1198 1199 1200 1201 1202 1203 1204 1205 1206 1207 1208 1209 1210 1211 1212 1213 1214 1215 1216 1217 1218 1219 1220 1221 1222 1223 1224 1225 1226 1227 1228 1229 1230 1231 1232 1233 1234 1235 1236 1237 1238 1239 1240 1241 1242 1243 1244 1245 1246 1247 1248 1249 1250 1251 1252 1253 1254 1255 1256 1257 1258 1259 1260 1261 1262 1263 1264 1265 1266 1267 1268 1269 1270 1271 1272 1273 1274 1275 1276 1277 1278 1279 1280 1281 1282 1283 1284 1285 1286 1287 1288 1289 1290 1291 1292 1293 1294 1295 1296 1297 1298 1299 1300 1301 1302 1303 1304 1305 1306 1307 1308 1309 1310 1311 1312 1313 1314 1315 1316 1317 1318 1319 1320 1321 1322 1323 1324 1325 1326 1327 1328 1329 1330 1331 1332 1333 1334 1335 1336 1337 1338 1339 1340 1341 1342 1343 1344 1345 1346 1347 1348 1349 1350 1351 1352 1353 1354 1355 1356 1357 1358 1359 1360 1361 1362 1363 1364 1365 1366 1367 1368 1369 1370 1371 1372 1373 1374 1375 1376 1377 1378 1379 1380 1381 1382 1383 1384 1385 1386 1387 1388 1389 1390 1391 1392 1393 1394 1395 1396 1397 1398 1399 1400 1401 1402 1403 1404 1405 1406 1407 1408 1409 1410 1411 1412 1413 1414 1415 1416 1417 1418 1419 1420 1421 1422 1423 1424 1425 1426 1427 1428 1429 1430 1431 1432 1433 1434 1435 1436 1437 1438 1439 1440 1441 1442 1443 1444 1445 1446 1447 1448 1449 1450 1451 1452 1453 1454 1455 1456 1457 1458 1459 1460 1461 1462 1463 1464 1465 1466 1467 1468 1469 1470 1471 1472 1473 1474 1475 1476 1477 1478 1479 1480 1481 1482 1483 1484 1485 1486 1487 1488 1489 1490 1491 1492 1493 1494 1495 1496 1497 1498 1499 1500 1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510 1511 1512 1513 1514 1515 1516 1517 1518 1519 1520 1521 1522 1523 1524 1525 1526 1527 1528 1529 1530 1531 1532 1533 1534 1535 1536 1537 1538 1539 1540 1541 1542 1543 1544 1545 1546 1547 1548 1549 1550 1551 1552 1553 1554 1555 1556 1557 1558 1559 1560 1561 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 1570 1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 1588 1589 1590 1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1617 1618 1619 1620 1621 1622 1623 1624 1625 1626 1627 1628 1629 1630 1631 1632 1633 1634 1635 1636 1637 1638 1639 1640 1641 1642 1643 1644 1645 1646 1647 1648 1649 1650 1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660 1661 1662 1663 1664 1665 1666 1667 1668 1669 1670 1671 1672 1673 1674 1675 1676 1677 1678 1679 1680 1681 1682 1683 1684 1685 1686 1687 1688 1689 1690 1691 1692 1693 1694 1695 1696 1697 1698 1699 1700 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1711 1712 1713 1714 1715 1716 1717 1718 1719 1720 1721 1722 1723 1724 1725 1726 1727 1728 1729 1730 1731 1732 1733 1734 1735 1736 1737 1738 1739 1740 1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769 1770 1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789 1790 1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035 2036 2037 2038 2039 2040 2041 2042 2043 2044 2045 2046 2047 2048 2049 2050 2051 2052 2053 2054 2055 2056 2057 2058 2059 2060 2061 2062 2063 2064 2065 2066 2067 2068 2069 2070 2071 2072 2073 2074 2075 2076 2077 2078 2079 2080 2081 2082 2083 2084 2085 2086 2087 2088 2089 2090 2091 2092 2093 2094 2095 2096 2097 2098 2099 2100 2101 2102 2103 2104 2105 2106 2107 2108 2109 2110 2111 2112 2113 2114 2115 2116 2117 2118 2119 2120 2121 2122 2123 2124 2125 2126 2127 2128 2129 2130 2131 2132 2133 2134 2135 2136 2137 2138 2139 2140 2141 2142 2143 2144 2145 2146 2147 2148 2149 2150 2151 2152 2153 2154 2155 2156 2157 2158 2159 2160 2161 2162 2163 2164 2165 2166 2167 2168 2169 2170 2171 2172 2173 2174 2175 2176 2177 2178 2179 2180 2181 2182 2183 2184 2185 2186 2187 2188 2189 2190 2191 2192 2193 2194 2195 2196 2197 2198 2199 2200 2201 2202 2203 2204 2205 2206 2207 2208 2209 2210 2211 2212 2213 2214 2215 2216 2217 2218 2219 2220 2221 2222 2223 2224 2225 2226 2227 2228 2229 2230 2231 2232 2233 2234 2235 2236 2237 2238 2239 2240 2241 2242 2243 2244 2245 2246 2247 2248 2249 2250 2251 2252 2253 2254 2255 2256 2257 2258 2259 2260 2261 2262 2263 2264 2265 2266 2267 2268 2269 2270 2271 2272 2273 2274 2275 2276 2277 2278 2279 2280 2281 2282 2283 2284 2285 2286 2287 2288 2289 2290 2291 2292 2293 2294 2295 2296 2297 2298 2299 2300 2301 2302 2303 2304 2305 2306 2307 2308 2309 2310 2311 2312 2313 2314 2315
|
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Hatari Debugger User's Manual</title>
<meta name="description"
content="User's manual for the Hatari emulator debugger" />
<meta name="author" content="Hatari development team" />
<meta name="keywords" content="hatari, documentation, manual" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<link href="manual.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script src="toc.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<h1 class="pageheader">Hatari Debugger User's Manual</h1>
<p class="pageheader">
Version 2.6.1, August 2025
</p>
<p class="pageheader">
Debugger manual written by: <strong>Eero Tamminen</strong>
</p>
<p class="pageheader">
See also:
<strong>
<a href="manual.html">Hatari manual</a>
</strong>
</p>
<p class="pageheader">
Hatari on the WWW:
<strong>
<a href="https://www.hatari-emu.org/">https://www.hatari-emu.org/</a>
</strong>
</p>
<h2 class="no-TOC">Index</h2>
<div id="generated-toc">
<!-- The TOC is generated automatically via JavaScript -->
</div>
<h2 id="The_debugger">The debugger</h2>
<p>
Hatari has a built-in debugging interface which can be used for
analyzing code that runs in the emulated system.
</p>
<p>
On Unix (Linux / macOS) debugger uses Hatari's parent console window, so
make sure you run Hatari from the command line when you want to use
the debugger. On Windows you need to use "-W" option to get console
window. You can add an icon to your desktop that does it. On Linux
it should do something like this (replace "xterm" with your favorite
terminal program):
</p>
<pre>
xterm -T "Hatari debug window" -e hatari
</pre>
<p>
To run debugger commands from a file at Hatari startup, one can use
the "--parse <file>" command line option. This is useful e.g.
for debugging TOS or some demo startup code, or if you always want to
use some specific debugger setup (breakpoints etc).
</p>
<p>
Note that when debugger scripts are run, current directory is set to
the currently running script's directory i.e. all file operations are
relative to it. After script finishes, earlier current directory is
restored. To set current directory from a setup script, e.g. for
scripts run at breakpoints, you need to give '-f' option for the
'cd' command.
</p>
<h3>Invoking the debugger</h3>
<p>
You can invoke the debugger manually by pressing the
<span class="key">AltGr + Pause</span> key combination.
</p>
<p>
With the "-D" command line option, you can toggle whether m68k
exceptions will also invoke the debugger. Which exceptions cause
this, can be controlled with the "--debug-except" option.
</p>
<p>
Giving "-D" option at Hatari startup is not advised because TOS HW
checks generate some exceptions at every TOS boot. It is better to
toggle exception catching later from the debugger with the "setopt -D"
command.
</p>
<p>
Alternatively, you can give "--debug-except" option "autostart" flag
(e.g. "--debug-except all,autostart"). This will enable catching of
(specified) exceptions after TOS boot, when Atari program given on
Hatari command line is <em>autostarted</em>.
</p>
<h3>Debugger configuration options</h3>
<p>When you save Hatari configuration, your current debugger
settings are also saved to the Hatari configuration file.</p>
<p>Settings are following:</p>
<dl>
<dt>nNumberBase</dt>
<dd>Debugger number base.
Set with the debugger "setopt [bin|dec|hex]" command</dd>
<dt>nSymbolLines</dt>
<dd>Number of lines to show when listing debug symbols</dd>
<dt>nMemdumpLines</dt>
<dd>Number of memory dump lines to show</dd>
<dt>nFindLines</dt>
<dd>Number of find (search) lines to show</dd>
<dt>nDisasmLines</dt>
<dd>Number of disassembly lines to show</dd>
<dt>nBacktraceLines</dt>
<dd>Number of items to show in stack/bactraces</dd>
<dt>nExceptionDebugMask</dt>
<dd>Mask of exceptions which invoke debugger when exceptions catching
is enabled (-D). Set with the "--debug-except" option</dd>
<dt>nDisasmOptions</dt>
<dd>Disassembler output options, set with the "--disasm" option</dd>
<dt>bDisasmUAE</dt>
<dd>Whether disassembly uses CPU core internal disassembler ("uae"),
or the external disassembler ("ext" one with output options).
Set with the "--disasm" option</dd>
<dt>bSymbolsAutoLoad</dt>
<dd>Whether debug symbols are automatically loaded when debugger is invoked,
and freed when program exits, for Atari programs run though GEMDOS HD.
Set with the "symbols autoload [on|off]" command
</dd>
<dt>bMatchAllSymbols</dt>
<dd>Whether symbol name TAB-completion matches just symbols from
a relevant code section, or all of them. Toggled with the
"symbols match" command</dd>
</dl>
<p>These are their defaults:</p>
<pre>
[Debugger]
nNumberBase = 10
nSymbolLines = -1
nMemdumpLines = -1
nFindLines = -1
nDisasmLines = -1
nBacktraceLines = 0
nExceptionDebugMask = 515
nDisasmOptions = 15
bDisasmUAE = TRUE
bSymbolsAutoLoad = TRUE
bMatchAllSymbols = FALSE
</pre>
<p>Settings on how many lines are shown can be changed only from the
configuration file. You should need to change/set them only if you
have built debugger without readline support, as it is then unable
to determine terminal size ("-1" = use terminal height).</p>
<p>Note that "--debug-except" and "--disasm" options can be given either
on Hatari command line or, like all other Hatari command line options,
with the debugger "setopt" command.</p>
<h3>General debugger use</h3>
<p>
At the debugger prompt, type "help" to get a list of all
the available commands and their shortcuts:
</p>
<pre>
Generic commands:
cd ( ) : change directory
echo ( ) : output given string(s)
evaluate ( e) : evaluate an expression
help ( h) : print help
history (hi) : show last CPU and/or DSP PC values + instructions
info ( i) : show machine/OS information
lock ( ) : specify information to show on entering the debugger
logfile ( f) : open or close log file
parse ( p) : get debugger commands from file
rename ( ) : rename given file
reset ( ) : reset emulation
screenshot ( ) : save screenshot to given file
setopt ( o) : set Hatari command line and debugger options
stateload ( ) : restore emulation state
statesave ( ) : save emulation state
trace ( t) : select Hatari tracing settings
variables ( v) : List builtin symbols / variables
quit ( q) : quit emulator
CPU commands:
address ( a) : set CPU PC address breakpoints
breakpoint ( b) : set/remove/list conditional CPU breakpoints
disasm ( d) : disassemble from PC, or given address
find ( ) : find given value sequence from memory
profile ( ) : profile CPU code
cpureg ( r) : dump register values or set register to value
memdump ( m) : dump memory
struct ( ) : structured memory output, e.g. for breakpoints
memwrite ( w) : write bytes to memory
loadbin ( l) : load a file into memory
savebin ( ) : save memory to a file
symbols ( ) : load CPU symbols & their addresses
step ( s) : single-step CPU
next ( n) : step CPU through subroutine calls / to given instruction type
cont ( c) : continue emulation / CPU single-stepping
DSP commands:
dspaddress (da) : set DSP PC address breakpoints
dspbreak (db) : set/remove/list conditional DSP breakpoints
dspdisasm (dd) : disassemble DSP code
dspmemdump (dm) : dump DSP memory
dspsymbols ( ) : load DSP symbols & their addresses
dspprofile (dp) : profile DSP code
dspreg (dr) : read/write DSP registers
dspstep (ds) : single-step DSP
dspnext (dn) : step DSP through subroutine calls / to given instruction type
dspcont (dc) : continue emulation / DSP single-stepping
</pre>
<h4 id="Entering_arguments_to_debugger_commands">Entering arguments to debugger commands</h4>
<p>
After writing (with TAB completion) one of the above command names,
pressing TAB will (for most commands) show all the available subcommands.
</p>
<p>
If you want to give numbers in other number bases
than the default/selected one, they need to be prefixed with a
character indicating this. For decimals this prefix is "#" (#15),
for hexadecimals "$" ($F), and for binary values it is "%" (%1111).
</p>
<p>
By default debugger expects all numbers without a prefix to be
decimals, but you can change the default number base with the "setopt"
command, just give it the desired default number base (bin/dec/hex).
<em>When using the hexadecimal number base, remember still to prefix
hexadecimal numbers with '$' if they could be confused with register
names (a0-7, d0-7)!</em> Otherwise results from expressions and
conditional breakpoints can be unexpected.
</p>
<h4>Calculations and immediate evaluation</h4>
<p>
Instead of a number, you can also use an arithmetic expression, by
surrounding it with quotes (""). An expression can contain
calculations with CPU and DSP registers, symbols and Hatari variables
in addition to numbers. For example to give a sum of A0 and D0
register values to a command, use "a0+d0".
</p>
<p>
Also within arithmetic expressions, parenthesis are used to indicate
indirect addressing, <em>not</em> to change the order of precedence.
Unlike with conditional breakpoint expressions (explained below), you
cannot give size for the indirect addressing, a long value is always
read from the RAM address given within parenthesis. For example to
get a long value pointed by stack pointer + 2, use "(a7+2)".
</p>
<p>
Values of arithmetic expressions are always evaluated before being
given to a command. Except for "evaluate" and "address" commands,
they always need to be marked with quotes (""). Besides arithmetic,
this can be used also to give symbol/address/register/variable values
to commands that don't otherwise interpret them. If command complains
that it didn't recognize e.g. a register name, just put it to quotes
and it will be "evaluated" before being given to the command.
</p>
<p>
Virtual V0-V7 "registers" can be used to store intermediate results
for calculations. For example, to get a sum of "_counter" symbol
address contents one could use following in suitable breakpoint:
</p>
<pre>
# store counter sum to V0 virtual register
r v0=(_counter)
# store count of how many values are added
r v1="v1+1"
</pre>
<p>And then later on, calculate the average:</p>
<pre>
# round the counter sum (add half count to sum)
r v2="v0 + v1/2"
# and calculate the rounded average (rounded sum / count)
e v2/v1
</pre>
<p>(Another virtual register was used for rounding here, in case one
wants to continue summing the _counter values with the original
value.)
</p>
<p>
With command argument completion (see <a href="#readline">readline</a>),
result from the last "evaluate" command can be inserted by typing '$'
and pressing TAB.
</p>
<h4>Hatari outputs and their controls</h4>
<p>When debugging something, there can be so much output that you
want to store emulator output for more detailed inspection later.</p>
<p>Hatari has 5 different kinds of outputs and their controls:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Tracing">Tracing</a>, controlled by "--trace" and
"--trace-file" options</li>
<li>Logging, controlled by "--log-level" and "--log-file" options</li>
<li>Debugger CPU+DSP <a href="Inspecting_emulation_state">disassembly /
memdump / register</a> commands output, controlled by "logfile" command</li>
<li>Xconout redirection [1] + Hatari command line help,
hard-coded to "stdout"</li>
<li>Rest of debugger (breakpoints etc) + Hatari output,
hard-coded to "stderr"</li>
</ul>
<p>With 3 first options defaulting to "stderr".</p>
<p>If you want to catch all of them, it is better just to redirect
all "stdout" and "stderr" output from Hatari to a file:</p>
<pre>
hatari --parse debugger.ini --trace os_base 2>&1 |Â tee out.log
</pre>
<p>("2>&1" redirects stderr to stdout for piping, and "tee"
command both saves and shows the output, so that you can still see
the saved output in more or less real-time.)</p>
<p>[1] E.g. VT52 console redirection to Hatari standard output is enabled
with "os_base" and "os_all" trace settings and "--conout 2" option.</p>
<h3 id="Inspecting_emulation_state">Inspecting emulation state</h3>
<p>
In the beginning, probably the most interesting commands are "m" and "d"
for dumping and disassembling memory regions. You can use "dm" and "dd"
commands to do the same for the DSP.
</p>
<pre>
> help memdump
'memdump' or 'm' - dump memory
Usage: m [b|w|l] [start address-[end address| count]]
dump memory at address or continue dump from previous address.
By default memory output is done as bytes, with 'w' or 'l'
option, it will be done as words/longs instead. Output amount
can be given either as a count or an address range.
</pre>
<pre>
> help disasm
'disasm' or 'd' - disassemble from PC, or given address
Usage: d [start address-[end address]]
If no address is given, this command disassembles from the last
position or from current PC if no last position is available.
</pre>
<pre>
> disasm pc
(PC)
$00aa6e : 2f08 move.l a0,-(sp)
$00aa70 : 0241 0fff andi.w #$fff,d1
$00aa74 : 207c 00fe 78c0 movea.l #$fe78c0,a0
$00aa7a : 2070 1000 movea.l (a0,d1.w),a0
$00aa7e : 4ed0 jmp (a0)
</pre>
<p>
Both commands accept in addition to numeric addresses also register
and symbol names, like in above example. If you don't specify an
address, the commands continue showing from an address that comes
after the previously shown data.
</p>
<p>
"disasm" command default address will be reset to program counter (PC)
address every time you re-enter the debugger. If history is enabled
and it includes addresses just before PC, disassembly will instead
start from a slightly earlier address to give more context.
</p>
<p>
Use "setopt --disasm help" if you want to set options controlling
the disassembly output.
</p>
<p>
You can use the "info" command to see state of specific sets of HW
registers (e.g. "info videl") and Atari OS structures (e.g. "info gemdos").
</p>
<p>
One can also show contents of arbitrary program structs with the
"struct" command. Parts of the structure can be skipped (with 's')
and they can be shown in different number bases:</p>
<pre>
> help struct
'struct' - structured memory output, e.g. for breakpoints
Usage: struct <name> <address>[name]:<type>[base][:<count>[/<split>]] ...]
Show <name>d structure content at given <address>, with each
[name]:<type>[base][:<count>] arg output on its own line, prefixed
with offset from struct start address, if [name] is not given.
Output uses multiple lines when type count <split> is given.
Supported <type>s are 'b|c|w|l|s' (byte|char|word|long|skip).
Optional [base] can be 'b|o|d|h' (bin|oct|dec|hex).
Defaults are hex [base], and [count] of 1.
</pre>
<p>For example:</p>
<pre>
> struct TOS 0xe00000 :s:2 version:wh:1 :s:20 os_date:lh os_conf:wb :s:14 :a:4
TOS: $e00000
+ version : 0206
+ os_date : 03172024
+ os_conf : 0000000011111111
+ $2c : ETOS
</pre>
<p>By saving such command to a file, it can be used with
<a href="#Breakpoint_options">breakpoint</a> ":file" option, to
show contents of a given structure, whenever that breakpoint
matches.</p>
<p>Prefixing "info" and "struct" commands with "echo \ec" command
would clear screen before their output. This could help noticing
changes in real-time output.</p>
<h4>Selecting what information is shown on entering the debugger</h4>
<p>
By using the "lock" command, you can ask Hatari to show specific
information whenever you enter the debugger, e.g. due to a breakpoint.
For example to see disassembly from current PC address, use "lock
disasm".
</p>
<p>
With the "regaddr" subcommand, you see disassembly or memory
dump of an address pointed by a given register ("lock regaddr disasm
a0"). Of the DSP registers, only Rx ones are valid for this
subcommand.
</p>
<p>
"file" subcommand can be used to get (arbitrary number of) commands
parsed and executed from a given debugger input file whenever debugger
is entered. With this you can output any information you need:
</p>
<pre>
lock file debugger.ini
</pre>
<p>
To disable showing of this extra information, use "lock default".
Without arguments "lock" command will show the available options
(like the "info" command does).
</p>
<h3>Debug symbols</h3>
<p>
You can load debugging symbols to the debugger with the "symbols"
command (and with "dspsymbols" for DSP). These symbolic names can be
used in arithmetic expressions and conditional breakpoint expressions.
They also show up in the "disasm" command output and you can trace
calls to them with "trace cpu_symbols" (and DSP symbols with "trace
dsp_symbols").
</p>
<h4>Demangling (C++) symbols</h4>
<p>C++ (and other similar languages) store symbols in binaries
in a "mangled" format used by tools like linkers, and symbol names
need to be "demangled" (expanded) to a more readable / user-friendly
format. This can be done using a tool coming with the C++ compiler
(in "binutils-m68k-atari-mint" package). ScummVM example:</p>
<pre>
$ gst2ascii scummvm.ttp | m68k-atari-mint-c++filt > scummvm.sym
</pre>
<p>(When symbols are in a file named as "<prgname>.sym", Hatari
debugger will load symbols from it, not from the program file.)
<p>Note: many demangled C++ symbols contain special characters
which prevent them from being given as arguments to breakpoints and
other debugger commands. One should use (resolved) symbol address
instead for those commands.</p>
<p>Addresses for symbols that match user specified substring,
can be listed like this:</p>
<pre>
symbols name XMLParser::parse
</pre>
<h4>Symbols for a program under GEMDOS HD emulation</h4>
<p>
If currently running program contains debug symbol table,
and it is started from GEMDOS HD emulated drive, its symbol names /
addresses are automatically loaded when debugger is invoked, and
removed when that program terminates.</p>
<p>
Above happens only if there are no symbols loaded when the program
starts. If there are, you can load program symbol data manually with
the following command, after program has been loaded to the memory by
TOS (see <a href="#Breakpoint_variables">setting breakpoint at program
startup</a>):
</p>
<pre>
symbols prg
</pre>
<p>
The options you need to add suitable symbol table to your programs,
depend on which toolchain you use to build it:
</p>
<dl>
<dt><em>Devpac</em>:</dt>
<dd>"OPT D+,X+"</dd>
<dt><em>AHCC</em>:</dt>
<dd>"-g" and "-l" options for linking</dd>
<dt><em>GCC</em>:</dt>
<dd>"-g" for compilation, and no strip option for linking
(with older Hatari versions that did not support "a.out" format,
also "-Wl,--traditional-format" option was needed for linking)</dd>
<dt><em>VBCC</em>:</dt>
<dd>"-g" (can only be used at linking phase), <em>when VBCC
configuration file uses "-bataritos" option for
the linker</em></dd>
</dl>
<p>You can view the generated symbols (and convert them to debugger
ASCII format) with tool installed with Hatari:</p>
<pre>
$ gst2ascii program.tos > program.sym
</pre>
<p>(By default "gst2ascii" filters out same symbols as Hatari debugger does.)</p>
<p>For C++ programs, pipe the that output through
<em>m68k-atari-mint-c++filt</em> demangler (see above)
before directing it to a file.</p>
<h5>Overriding program symbols</h5>
<p>Symbols in a program can be overridden by providing similarly
named ".sym" file in the same directory. If for example there is
a file called "program.sym", debugger will try to load that instead
of "program.prg" (when debugger is first invoked after that program
started).</p>
<p>There are few reasons why one might want to do that:</p><ul>
<li>Provide debugger demangled versions of the C++ program symbols</li>
<li>Stripped binary + ".sym" file take less space than providing
also a non-stripped binary</li>
<li>Add (function) or remove (loop) symbols to improve profiling
results</li>
</ul>
<h4>For a program on a (disk) image</h4>
<p>
If the program isn't run from a GEMDOS HD emulated drive, but from
a cartridge, floppy or HD image, you need to have the corresponding
program also as a normal host file which location you can give to
the debugger:
</p>
<pre>
symbols /path/to/the/program.tos
</pre>
<h4>ASCII debug symbol files</h4>
<p>
If Hatari complains that your program doesn't have debug symbol table,
or its symbols are in some unsupported format, you have two options:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Convert the symbols to ASCII format understood by the Hatari debugger.
Writing converters for other ASCII formats is easy, and Hatari already
contains converters for DSP LOD files, <span class="commandline">nm</span>
output, and a few other formats.</li>
<li>Create the ASCII symbols file by hand while you're debugging a program.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>NOTE:</b> <span class="commandline">nm</span> output for GCC generated
<span class="commandline">a.out</span> binaries includes labels also for loops,
not just functions. While loop labels are fine for debugging, <em>they should
be removed before profiling</em>. Besides causing misleading profile
results, loop labels can <em>seriously</em> slow down profiling
(call graph tracking is automatically enabled for profiling when debug
symbols are loaded, and operations done on each matched symbol address
cause huge overhead if that match is for something happening every few
instructions).
</p>
<p>ASCII symbols file format is following:</p>
<pre>
e01034 T random
e01076 T kbdvbase
e0107e T supexec
</pre>
<p>
Where 'T' means text (code), 'D' means data and 'B' means BSS section
type of address. The hexadecimal address, address type letter and the
symbol name are separated by white space. Empty lines and lines
starting with '#' (comments) are ignored.
</p>
<p>
Debugger will automatically "relocate" the symbol addresses when it
loads them from a program binary, but with ASCII symbol files you need
to give the relocation offset(s) separately, unless the symbol names
are for fixed addresses (like is the case e.g. with EmuTOS):
</p>
<pre>
symbols program.sym TEXT DATA BSS
</pre>
<p>
If you're interested only about code symbols, you can leave DATA and
BSS offsets out (the values of the above virtual debugger variables
like TEXT come from the currently loaded program's basepage, they're
set after the program is loaded by TOS, see "info basepage" output).
</p>
<h4>Debugging resident programs</h4>
<p>When debugging resident (TSR) programs (terminated with a Ptermres()
GEMDOS call), you'll probably have a 'trigger' program that invokes
some functionality in the TSR you want to debug. Loading your 'trigger'
program from a Hatari GEMDOS emulated drive will autoload its symbols,
thus replacing the symbols of your TSR (which you are really interested
in) you loaded previously.</p>
<p>Symbol replacement can be avoided in two ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Using "symbols autoload off" debugger command, or</li>
<li>Loading TSR symbols from an ASCII file (see above). This is the way
to go if your TSR is not a normal Atari program, or you want to filter or
add some symbols (e.g. for profiling)</li>
</ul>
<h3>Breakpoints</h3>
<p>
There are two ways to specify breakpoints for Hatari. First, there are
the simple address breakpoints which trigger when the CPU (or DSP)
program counter hits a given address. Use "a" (or "da" for the DSP)
to create them, for example:
</p>
<pre>
a $e01034
a some_symbol
</pre>
<p>
Note that address breakpoints are just wrappers for conditional
breakpoints so you need to use "b" command to remove or list them.
</p>
<p>
Then there are the conditional breakpoints which can handle much more
complex break condition expressions; they can track changes to
register and memory values with bitmasks, include multiple conditions
for triggering a breakpoint and so on. Use "b" (or "db" for the DSP)
to manage them.
</p>
<p>Help explains the general syntax:</p>
<pre>
> help b
'breakpoint' or 'b' - set/remove/list conditional CPU breakpoints
Usage: b <condition> [&& <condition> ...] [:<option>] | <index> | help | all
Set breakpoint with given <conditions>, remove breakpoint with
given <index>, remove all breakpoints with 'all' or output
breakpoint condition syntax with 'help'. Without arguments,
lists currently active breakpoints.
</pre>
<p>
Unless you give breakpoint one of the pre-defined subcommands ('all',
'help'), index for a breakpoint to remove or no arguments (to list
breakpoints), the arguments are interpreted as a new breakpoint
definition.
</p>
<p>
Each conditional breakpoint can have (currently up to 4) conditions
which are separated by "&&". All of the breakpoint's
conditions need to be true for a breakpoint to trigger.
</p>
<h4 id="Breakpoint_options">Breakpoint options</h4>
<p>
Normally when a breakpoint is triggered, emulation is stopped and you
get to the debugger. Breakpoint options can be used to affect what
happens when a breakpoint is triggered. These options are given after
the conditions, and are prefixed with a (space and) ':' character.
</p>
<dl>
<dt><em><count></em></dt>
<dd>Break only on every <count> hit. For example, to stop
on every other time PC is at given address, use:
<pre>
a $1234 :2
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>once</em></dt>
<dd>
Delete the breakpoint when it is hit, i.e. trigger it only once. It may
be useful if you just want to get a specific address. Or if you're on
an instruction that jumps back to a start of the loop and you want to
finish the loop, you could use:
<pre>
b pc > "pc" :once
continue
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>trace</em></dt>
<dd>
Continue emulation without stopping after printing the value that
triggered the breakpoint and doing other possible option actions.
This is most useful when investigating memory or register value
changes (explained below).
</dd>
<dt><em>lock</em></dt>
<dd>
Show the same information on breakpoint hit as you see when entering
the debugger (see the "lock" command in
<a href="#Inspecting_emulation_state">Inspecting emulation state</a>
above). This enables also trace option as you would anyway see this
information if debugger would be entered.
</dd>
<dt><em>info <name></em></dt>
<dd>
Show on breakpoint hits the same information as "info" command would
show (see <a href="#Inspecting_emulation_state">Inspecting emulation
state</a> above). With "lock" option and command there is more control
over what information is shown, whereas with "info" option, every
breakpoint can show different information, and one doesn't need to
change what's shown on entering the debugger. This option also
enables trace option.
</dd>
<dt><em>file <file></em></dt>
<dd>
Execute debugger commands from given <file> when this breakpoint
is hit. With this you have complete control over what information is
show when the debugger is hit, you can even chain breakpoints (as
explained in
<a href="#Chaining_breakpoints">Chaining breakpoints</a> later on).
Use this when "info" and "lock" options are not enough.
</dd>
<dt><em>noinit</em></dt>
<dd>
Avoid debugger initialization (profiling data reset and disassembly
address being set to current PC) on breakpoint hit. This enables trace
option as entering debugger would anyway re-initialize debugger state.
This option is mainly intended for breakpoints that use either
":file" or ":lock" option to show backtraces with "profile stack"
command during <a href="#Profiling">profiling</a>. See
<a href="#Usage_examples">Usage examples</a> section for an example.
</dd>
<dt><em>quiet</em></dt>
<dd>
Inhibit showing of extra information when breakpoint is either set or
hit i.e. show only the information that breakpoint itself outputs.
</dd>
</dl>
<p>
Note: you can give multiple options for conditional breakpoints, but
for address breakpoints you can give only one these options. "file"
and "info" options are supported only for conditional breakpoints.
</p>
<h4>Breakpoint conditions</h4>
<p>
"b help" explains very briefly the breakpoint condition syntax:
</p>
<pre>
> b help
condition = <value>[.mode] [& <mask>] <comparison> <value>[.mode]
where:
value = [(] <register/symbol/variable name | number> [)]
number/mask = [#|$|%]<digits>
comparison = '<' | '>' | '=' | '!'
addressing mode (width) = 'b' | 'w' | 'l'
addressing mode (space) = 'p' | 'x' | 'y'
</pre>
<p>
For CPU breakpoints, mode is the address width; it can be byte ("b"),
word ("w") or long ("l", default). For DSP breakpoints, mode specifies
the address space: "P", "X" or "Y". Note that on DSP only R0-R7
registers can be used for memory addressing. For example;
<pre>
db (r0).x = 1 && (r0).y = 2
</pre>
<p>
If the value is in parenthesis like in '($ff820)' or '(a0)', then the
used value will be read from the memory address pointed by it. Note
that this conditional breakpoint expression value is checked at
run-time whereas quoted arithmetic expressions (mentioned in
<a href="#Entering_arguments_to_debugger_commands">Entering arguments
to debugger commands</a> above) are evaluated already when
adding a breakpoint. For example, to break when a value in an address
(later) pointed by A0 matches the value <em>currently</em> in D0, one
would use:
</p>
<pre>
b (a0) = "d0"
</pre>
<p>
If you're interested only on certain bits in the value, you can use
'&' and a numeric mask on either side of comparison operator to
mask the corresponding value, like this:
<pre>
b ($ff820).w & 3 = (a0) && (a1) = d0 & %1100
</pre>
<p>
Comparison operators should be familiar and obvious, except for '!'
which indicates inequality ("is not") comparison. For example:
</p>
<pre>
b d0 > $20 && d0 < $40 && d0 ! $30
</pre>
<h5>Tracking breakpoint conditions</h5>
<p>
As a convenience, if the both sides of the comparison are exactly the
same (i.e. condition is redundant as it is always either true or
false), the <em>right side</em> of the comparison is replaced with
its current value. This way you can give something like this:
</p>
<pre>
b pc > "pc"
</pre>
<p>As:</p>
<pre>
b pc > pc
</pre>
<p>
That in itself isn't so useful, but for inequality ('!') comparison,
conditional breakpoint will additionally track and output all further
changes for the given address/register expression. This can be used
for example to find out all value changes in a given memory address,
like this:
</p>
<pre>
b ($ffff9202).w ! ($ffff9202).w :trace
</pre>
<p>
Because tracking breakpoint conditions will print the evaluated
value when it changes, they're typically used with the trace option
to track changes e.g. to some I/O register.
</p>
<h5>Breakpoint condition notes</h5>
<ul>
<li>
Any '!' condition should be given as the first condition. Because
breakpoint evaluation is stopped ("short-circuited") when any of the
conditions fails, the tracked value would not be updated correctly
unless tracking condition is given as the first one.
</li>
<li>
Hatari will internally update some register values without immediately
updating the corresponding I/O address range memory addresses. For
example the Busy bit for the internal Blitter control register is
(internally) cleared when Blitter activity stops, but the actual I/O
address for that control register gets updated only when something
actually writes or reads that I/O address. Many HW registers behave
like this (status registers in FDC, ACIA, MFP, Blitter...).
<br>
For breakpoints that track just a single I/O register memory address, or
multiple ones of which <strong>none</strong> are modified by Hatari,
only by emulated code, this is not a problem, they get triggered as
expected.
<br>
However, if you have a breakpoint that tracks multiple I/O registers
where some of them are updated by Hatari, for example to check that
other Blitter registers aren't updated while control register
indicates Blitter to be active (busy), things don't work as expected!
</li>
</ul>
<h4>Breakpoint variables</h4>
<p>
In addition to loaded symbols, the debugger supports also setting
conditional breakpoints on values of some "virtual" variables listed
by "variables" (v) command. For example:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Aes/Bios/Gemdos/LineA/LineF/Vdi/XbiosOpcode variables can be used
to catch AES, BIOS, GEMDOS, Line-A, Line-F, VDI and XBIOS OS-calls.
By default they contain the 0xffff value, so to trace e.g. all AES
calls (instead of a specific one) one needs to use something like this:
<pre>
b AesOpcode ! AesOpcode && AesOpcode < 0xffff :trace
</pre>
</li>
<li>To stop when TOS starts loading next program, set a breakpoint for
Pexec(0,...) OS call:
<pre>
b GemdosOpcode = 0x4B && OsCallParam = 0x0
</pre>
</li>
<li>To stop emulation after program has been loaded, but before
it runs, set next breakpoint on its first instruction i.e. when
program counter matches the TEXT (code) segment address (taken
from program basepage):
<pre>
b pc = TEXT :once
</pre>
Note1: It is better to trigger this breakpoint only once, because if
you would leave it on, during (re)boot you would get a warning for
every instruction (until TOS sets a valid basepage).
<br />
Note2: you cannot use an <em>address</em> breakpoint for this because
variable values are evaluated at run-time only for conditional
breakpoints.
</li>
<li>To view current program DATA and BSS segment contents,
use the corresponding variables:
<pre>
m DATA
m BSS
</pre>
</li>
<li>If you want to stop at a specific cycle within a frame (that is,
PC relative to the current VBL/HBL in cycles), set breakpoints to
specific "VBL", "FrameCycles", "HBL" and "LineCycles" variable
values. If you want, for example, to break after 20 HBLs, use:
<pre>
b HBL = "HBL+20"
</pre>
</li>
<li>To stop on every symbol, break on:
<pre>
b PConSymbol = 1
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Hint: "info" command "aes", "bios", "gemdos", "vdi" and "xbios"
subcommands can be used to list the corresponding OS-call opcodes.
For example, to see the GEMDOS opcodes, use:</p>
<pre>
info gemdos 1
</pre>
<h4 id="Chaining_breakpoints">Chaining breakpoints and other actions</h4>
<p>
As the file pointed by the breakpoint ":file" option (see
<a href="#Breakpoint_options">Breakpoint options</a>) can contain any
debugger commands, it can also be used to do automatic "chaining" of
debugger and breakpoint actions so that after one breakpoint is hit,
another one is set.
</p>
<p>For example if you have these input files:</p>
<ul>
<li>"pexec.ini":
<pre>
# continue to "program.ini" on Pexec(0, ....)
b GemdosOpcode = 0x4B && OsCallParam = 0x0 :trace :once :file program.ini
</pre>
</li>
<li>"program.ini":
<pre>
# continue to "trace.ini" when program execution starts
b pc = TEXT :trace :once :file trace.ini
</pre>
</li>
<li>"trace.ini":
<pre>
# load symbols, trace gemdos & program function calls
symbols prg
trace gemdos,cpu_symbols
# continue to "disable.ini" after 4 VBLs
b VBL = "VBL+4" :trace :once :file disable.ini
</pre>
</li>
<li>"disable.ini":
<pre>
# stop tracing and remove breakpoints
trace none
b all
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
And then start Hatari with the first debugger input file:
</p>
<pre>
hatari --parse pexec.ini /path/to/your/program.tos
</pre>
<ol>
<li>"pexec.ini" sets a breakpoint to parse debugger commands from
"program.ini" when TOS starts loading the given program
(it is first Pexec(0) after boot)</li>
<li>"program.ini" sets a breakpoint to parse debugger commands from
"trace.ini" when program code begins executing. These two steps
are needed because TEXT variable isn't valid until TOS has booted</li>
<li>"trace.ini" input file loads symbols for the run program, sets Hatari
to trace several things (see <a href="#Tracing">Tracing</a> section
below) in the emulated system for few VBLs until breakpoint runs
commands from the "disable.ini" file</li>
<li>"disable.ini" input file will disable tracing and remove
all (remaining) breakpoints</li>
</ol>
<p><em>Note:</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Because debugger input files cannot "continue"
emulation, ":trace" option needs to be used for the breakpoint(s)
if you want emulation to continue after the breakpoint action(s).</li>
<li>In simpler breakpoint chain (like above), where new breakpoint
just replaces the previous one, ":once" option tells debugger that
breakpoint isn't needed after it is hit.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Hint: It is better to test each input file separately before testing
the whole chain. Besides the ":file" breakpoint option, you can test
these debugger input files also with the debugger "file" command,
"file" option for the "lock" command, and with the Hatari "--parse"
command line option.
</p>
<h3 id="Stepping">Stepping through code</h3>
<p>
After analyzing the emulation state and/or setting new breakpoints,
you can continue the emulation with the "c" command. You can continue
for a given number of CPU instructions (or DSP instructions when "dc"
is used), or you can continue forever (until a non-tracing breakpoint
triggers) if you omit the instruction count.
</p>
<p>
If you want to continue just to the next instruction, use "s" (step)
command to continue for exactly one instruction, or "n" (next), if you
want to skip subroutine + exception calls and DBCC branching backwards
(i.e. loops). "ds" and "dn" commands do the same for DSP (except that
"dn" doesn't skip loops).
</p>
<p>
You can also continue with the "n" until instruction of certain
type is encountered, by giving it the instruction type:
<ul>
<li>"branch" matches branch instructions:<br>
CPU: BCC, BRA, DBCC, JMP<br>
DSP: DO/ENDO JCC, JCLR, JMP, JSET, REP</li>
<li>"subcall" matches subroutine calls:<br>
CPU: BSR, JSR<br>
DSP: JSCC, JSCLR, JSSET, JSR</li>
<li>"subreturn" matches return from subroutine:<br>
CPU: RTD, RTR, RTS<br>
DSP: RTS</li>
<li>"exception" matches exceptions:<br>
CPU: BKPT, ILLG, STOP, TRAP, TRAPV</li>
<li>"exreturn" matches return from exception:<br>
CPU: RTE<br>
DSP: RTI</li>
<li>"return" matches both subroutine and exception returns</li>
</ul>
<p>
"subreturn" differs from others by running until current subroutine
ends, even if other subroutines are called before that. This is
particularly useful for profiling more complex functions; set
breakpoint on function start, enable profiling and run until that
functions returns, to get its full profile. Example: "n subreturn",
or "dn subreturn".
</p>
<p>Notes:</p>
<ul>
<li>"next subreturn" works only for real subroutines i.e. code called
with BSR/JSR and returning with RT[DRS]. In (GCC) optimized compiled
C-code, calls to functions in same C / object file may get inlined
or just called with JMP. If that's the case, and making the
function non-static doesn't help, move it to another C-file</li>
<li>"exreturn" and "return" run only until first instruction of given
type is encountered. They cannot implement similar functionality
as "subreturn", because it's not possible for "next" command to
track CPU / DSP exception invocations, and therefore it cannot
do call depth tracking required for this either</li>
<li>Tracking CPU CHK2 and FPU FBCC, FDBCC & FTRAPCC exception /
branch instructions isn't supported currently</li>
</ul>
<h3>Tracing</h3>
<p>
(Hatari needs to be built with ENABLE_TRACING define set for
tracing to work. By default it is.)
</p>
<p>
If you want e.g. to continue with real-time disassembling, you can
enable it with "trace cpu_disasm" (or "trace dsp_disasm" for DSP) at
the debugger prompt before continuing.
</p>
<p>
Disable tracing with "trace none" when you enter the debugger again.
"trace help" (or TAB) can be used to list all the (over 40) supported
traceable things, from HW events to OS functions.
</p>
<p>
At run-time you can enable and disable trace flags individually by
starting the trace flags with -/+, like this:
</p>
<pre>
trace gemdos,aes,vdi # trace just these
trace +xbios,bios # trace additionally these
trace -aes,-vdi # remove tracing of these
</pre>
<p>
('+' is optional for addition except at start of the trace flags list.)
</p>
<p>
Notes:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
If GEMDOS HD emulation isn't enabled, GEMDOS call tracing needs to be
enabled at Hatari command line, it is not possible to enable it after
TOS has initialized GEMDOS.
</li>
<li>
AES, BIOS, GEMDOS and XBIOS traces show arguments for (most of) the
calls, VDI trace shows only function calls (parsing the arguments
would be too complicated).
</li>
<li>
Tracing options can be set even from a program within the emulation,
if you enable the (deprecated) "--bios-intercept" option and call
XBios 255 from the program with a suitable trace options string.
</li>
<li>
Note that the trace output file can be set only when Hatari starts,
it cannot be changed from within the debugger (or emulation).
</li>
</ul>
<p>
If there isn't a trace option for something you would like to track,
you may be able to use tracing breakpoints, explained above.
For example, following tracks Line-A calls:
</p>
<pre>
b LineAOpcode ! LineAOpcode && LineAOpcode < 0xffff :trace
</pre>
<h3>Profiling</h3>
<p>
Profiling tells where the emulated code spends most of its (emulated)
time. It can be used to find out where a program is (apparently)
stuck, or what are the largest performance bottlenecks for a program.
</p>
<h4>Collecting the profile data</h4>
<p>
Profiling is used by first enabling the profiler (use "dp" for DSP):
</p>
<pre>
> profile on
Profiling enabled.
</pre>
<p>
And profiling will start once you continue the emulation:
</p>
<pre>
> c
Returning to emulation...
Allocated CPU profile buffer (27 MB).
</pre>
<p>
When you get back to the debugger, the collected profiling information
is processed and a summary of in which parts of memory the execution
happened, and how long it took, is shown:
</p>
<pre>
Allocated CPU profile address buffer (57 KB).
ROM TOS (0xE00000-0xE80000):
- active address range:
0xe00030-0xe611a4
- active instruction addresses:
14240 (100.00% of all)
- executed instructions:
4589668 (100.00% of all)
- used cycles:
56898472 (100.00% of all)
= 7.09347s
Cartridge ROM (0xFA0000-0xFC0000):
- no activity
= 7.09347s
</pre>
<p>
(DSP RAM will be shown only as single area in profile information.)
</p>
<h4>Investigating the profile data</h4>
<p>
When you are back in debugger, you can inspect the collected profile data:
</p>
<pre>
> h profile
'profile' - profile CPU code
Usage: profile <subcommand> [parameter]
Subcommands:
- on
- off
- counts [count]
- cycles [count]
- i-misses [count]
- d-hits [count]
- symbols [count]
- addresses [address]
- callers
- caches
- stack
- stats
- save <file>
- loops <file> [CPU limit] [DSP limit]
'on' ¨ 'off' enable and disable profiling. Data is collected
until debugger is entered again at which point you get profiling
statistics ('stats') summary.
Then you can ask for list of the PC addresses, sorted either by
execution 'counts', used 'cycles', i-cache misses or d-cache hits.
First can be limited just to named addresses with 'symbols'.
Optional count will limit how many items will be shown.
'caches' shows histogram of CPU cache usage.
'addresses' lists the profiled addresses in order, with the
instructions (currently) residing at them. By default this
starts from the first executed instruction, or you can
specify the starting address.
'callers' shows (raw) caller information for addresses which
had symbol(s) associated with them. 'stack' shows the current
profile stack (this is useful only with :noinit breakpoints).
Profile address and callers information can be saved with
'save' command.
Detailed (spin) looping information can be collected by
specifying to which file it should be saved, with optional
limit(s) on how many bytes first and last instruction
address of the loop can differ (0 = no limit).
</pre>
<p>For example, to see which memory addresses were executed most
and what instructions those have at the end of profiling, use:</p>
<pre>
> profile counts 8
addr: count:
0xe06f10 12.11% 555724 move.l $4ba,d1
0xe06f16 12.11% 555724 cmp.l d1,d0
0xe06f18 12.11% 555724 bgt.s $e06f06
0xe06f06 12.11% 555708 move.b $fffffa01.w,d1
0xe06f0a 12.11% 555708 btst #5,d1
0xe06f0e 12.11% 555708 beq.s $e06f1e
0xe00ed8 1.66% 76001 subq.l #1,d0
0xe00eda 1.66% 76001 bpl.s $e00ed8
8 CPU addresses listed.
</pre>
<p>
Then, to see what the executed code and its costs look like
around top addresses:
<pre>
> profile addresses 0xe06f04
# disassembly with profile data:
# <instructions percentage>% (<sum of instructions>, <sum of cycles>, <sum of i-cache misses>, <sum of d-cache hits>)
$e06f04 : bra.s $e06f10 0.00% (48, 576, 0, 0)
$e06f06 : move.b $fffffa01.w,d1 12.11% (555708, 8902068, 0, 0)
$e06f0a : btst #5,d1 12.11% (555708, 6685268, 0, 0)
$e06f0e : beq.s $e06f1e 12.11% (555708, 4457312, 0, 0)
$e06f10 : move.l $4ba,d1 12.11% (555724, 11125668, 0, 0)
$e06f16 : cmp.l d1,d0 12.11% (555724, 4461708, 0, 0)
$e06f18 : bgt.s $e06f06 12.11% (555724, 4455040, 0, 0)
$e06f1a : moveq #1,d0 0.00% (16, 64, 0, 0)
Disassembled 8 (of active 14240) CPU addresses.
</pre>
<p>
Unlike normal disassembly, "profile addresses" command shows only
memory addresses which instructions were executed during profiling.
You get cache hit/miss information only when using cycle-accurate
680x0 emulation.
<p>
If you have loaded symbol information, symbol names are shown above
the corresponding addresses. With the "profile symbols" command you
get a list of how many times the code execution passed through the
defined symbol addresses.
</p>
<h4>Profile data accuracy</h4>
<p>Profile data accuracy depends on Hatari emulation accuracy.
Profile data accuracy, from most to least accurate, with default
Hatari emulation options, is following:</p>
<ul>
<li>CPU and DSP instruction counts: accurate.</li>
<li>68000 cycle counts: tested to be accurate to within 1%.</li>
<li>MegaSTE 16Mhz 68000 (16KB) cache: hit/miss/cycle counts should also be accurate.</li>
<li>DSP cycle counts (and the variance information): should be accurate.</li>
<li>030 (256B+256B) cache: hit/miss counts are assumed to be accurate.</li>
<li>030 cycle counts: can be off by tens of percents.</li>
<li>FPU cycle counts: can be off by 2x.</li>
<li>TT-RAM access: perf improvement over ST-RAM is not emulated.</li>
<li>040/060 cycle counts: reported, but not accurate, nor really emulated - ignore.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Caller information</h4>
<p>
If you have loaded symbols (see <a href="#Debug_symbols">Debug symbols</a>)
before continuing emulation/profiling, additional caller information
will be collected for all the code symbol addresses which are called
as subroutines. This information includes callstack, call counts,
calling instruction type (subroutine call, branch, return etc), and
costs for those calls, both including costs for further subroutine
calls and without them.
</p>
<p>When debugger is re-entered, current callstack is output before
profiling information:</p>
<pre>
> a <em>_P_LineAttack</em>
CPU condition breakpoint 1 with 1 condition(s) added:
pc = $30f44
$030f44 : 48e7 3820 movem.l d2-d4/a2,-(sp)
> c
...
CPU breakpoint condition(s) matched 1 times.
pc = $30f44
Finalizing costs for 12 non-returned functions:
- 0x32a3c: _P_GunShot (return = 0x32b7e)
- 0x32b18: _A_FireShotgun (return = 0x3229a)
- 0x3223a: _P_SetPsprite (return = 0x32e86)
- 0x32e4e: _P_MovePsprites (return = 0x38070)
- 0x37f44: _P_PlayerThink (return = 0x36ea0)
- 0x36e44: _P_Ticker (return = 0x260e0)
- 0x25dcc: _G_Ticker (return = 0x1e4c6)
- 0x1e29e: _TryRunTics (return = 0x239fa)
- 0x238e8: _D_DoomLoop (return = 0x2556a)
- 0x24d7a: _D_DoomMain (return = 0x44346)
...
</pre>
<p>("profile stack" command can be used in breakpoints with :noinit
option to show backtraces during caller profiling.)</p>
<p>Note: rest of this subsection is about caller information format
which is mainly of interest for people writing profiling
post-processing tools. Come back here if you think there's
some problem with callgraphs produced by those tools.</p>
<p>Other information collected during profiling is shown with
following command:</p>
<pre>
> profile callers
# <callee>: <caller1> = <calls> <types>[ <inclusive/totals>[ <exclusive/totals>]], <caller2> ..., <callee name>
# types: s = subroutine call, r = return from subroutine, e = exception, x = return from exception,
# b = branch/jump, n = PC moved to next instruction, u = unknown PC change
# totals: calls/instructions/cycles/misses
0xe00030: 0xffffff = 1 e, _main
0xe000fe: 0xe00a0c = 1 b, memdone
0xe0010a: 0xe04e34 = 1 s 1/5/72 1/5/72, _run_cartridge_applications
0xe00144: 0xe04dbe = 1 s 4/118/1512 1/27/444, _init_acia_vecs
0xe001ea: 0xe00ec6 = 1 b, _int_acia
0xe0038c: 0xe04c28 = 1 s 1/191/2052 1/191/2052, _init_exc_vec
0xe003a6: 0xe04c2e = 1 s 1/388/4656 1/388/4656, _init_user_vec
...
</pre>
<p>
For example, if you don't know all the places from which a certain
function is called, or in what context a certain interrupt handler can
be called during the period you are profiling, profile caller
information will tell you:
</p>
<pre>
callee: caller: calls: calltype:
| | | /
0x379: 0x155 = 144 r, 0x283 = 112 b, 0x2ef = 112 b, 0x378 = 72 s
583236/359708265/1631189180 72/4419020/19123430, dsp_interrupt
| | |
inclusive costs exclusive costs callee name
(of calls from 0x378)
Calltypes:
- b: jump/branch
- n: PC just moved to next address
- r: subroutine return
- s: subroutine call
</pre>
<p>
(Most "calls" to "dsp_interrupt" were subroutine call returns (=r)
to it from address 0x155.)
</p>
<p>
With the execution counts in normal profiling data, caller information
can actually be used to have complete picture of what exactly the code
did during profiling. Main/overview work for this analysis is best done
automatically, by the profiler data post-processor (documented below).
</p>
<h4>Caller data accuracy</h4>
<p>Everything about profile data accuracy applies also to caller costs,
but there are additional things to take into account, mainly because
profiler cannot determine when exceptions are being handled:</p>
<ul>
<li>If there are exception(s) during a subroutine call, costs for
the exception handling will also be accounted for that subroutine.
This shouldn't be a problem unless those costs are very large,
i.e. check how much CPU your exception handlers take.</li>
<li>Indicated exception handler call type can be incorrect.</li>
<li>Profiled code doing return address related stack manipulations
confuses call tracking and produces incorrect results (profiler
has special code to handle EmuTOS AES switcher because of this).
Typically this produces large list of functions that are finalized
at profile end, so it should be easy to detect.</li>
<li>Complicated recursive calls seem to sometimes cause inclusive
costs (ones including costs of further subroutine calls) to be
incorrect, e.g. >100%.</li>
<li>On DSP, profiler heuristics assume (for speed reasons) that
<em>conditional</em> subroutine calls never call the very next
instruction (as that would be very bad/inefficient code).</li>
</ul>
<h4>Saving profile data to a file</h4>
<p>It is useful to save the profile data to a file:</p>
<pre>
> profile save program-profile.txt
</pre>
<p>With the saved profile disassembly (and optional caller information)
you can more easily investigate what your program did during
profiling, search symbols & addresses in it, and compare the
results to profiles you have saved from earlier versions of your code.</p>
<p>You may even create your own post-processing tools for
investigating the profiling data more closely, e.g. to
<a href="http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=24561&start=75#p226505">find
CPU/DSP communication bottlenecks</a>.</p>
<h3>Profile data post-processing</h3>
<p>Saved profile data can be post-processed with (Python) script
installed by Hatari, to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Get lists of functions/symbols with highest costs.</li>
<li>Get callgraphs of what functions/symbols cause those
costs and what kind of call hierarchy the profiled code
has.</li>
<li>Export profile data in Valgrind's
<a href="http://valgrind.org/docs/manual/cl-format.html">Callgrind format</a>
for viewing it in
<a href="http://kcachegrind.sourceforge.net/">Kcachegrind</a>
GUI.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Providing symbols for the post-processor</h4>
<p>When the data is post-processed, you should always provide
the post-processor symbols for the profile code! Relying just on the
symbol in the profile data can cause costs to be assigned to wrong
symbol, if symbol's code wasn't called through symbol's own address,
but by jumping inside its code.</p>
<p>If your code is in fixed location, you should tell
post-processor to handle symbol addresses as absolute (-a):</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py <b>-a</b> etos1024k.sym emutos-profile.txt
</pre>
<p>Normal programs are relocated and you should instead give
the symbols as TEXT (code) section relative ones (-r):</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py <b>-r</b> program.sym program-profile.txt
</pre>
<p>If symbols are included to your binary, first they need to be
extracted to <a href="#Debug_symbols">the ASCII format</a>
understood by the post-processor:</p>
<pre>
$ gst2ascii -b -a -d program.prg > program.sym
</pre>
<p>(Options given to "gst2ascii" filter out symbols for other
things than what are in the program code section.)
<p>If there are some extra symbols that you don't want to see
separately in profiles, because they aren't real functions,
but e.g. loop labels, you can either remove them manually
from the ASCII *.sym file, or filter them out with grep:
</p>
<pre>
$ gst2ascii -b -a -d program.prg | grep -v -e useless1 -e useless2 > program.sym
</pre>
<p>For C++ programs, see earlier section(s) on how to best
provide symbols for them.</p>
<h4>Post-processor provided statistics</h4>
<p>Above post-processor examples just parse + verify the given data
and produce output like this:</p>
<pre>
Hatari profile data processor
Parsing TEXT relative symbol address information from program.sym...
[...]
3237 lines with 1550 code symbols/addresses parsed, 0 unknown.
Parsing profile information from program-profile.txt...
[...]
9575 lines processed with 368 functions.
CPU profile information from 'program-profile.txt':
- Hatari v1.6.2+ (May 4 2013), WinUAE CPU core
</pre>
<p>To get statistics (-s) and list of top (-t) CPU users in profile,
add "-st" option:</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py <b>-st</b> -r program.sym program-profile.txt
[...]
CPU profile information from 'program-profile.txt':
- Hatari v1.6.2+ (May 4 2013), WinUAE CPU core
Time spent in profile = 34.49539s.
Calls:
- max = 187738, in __toupper at 0x52b88, on line 8286
- 1585901 in total
Executed instructions:
- max = 1900544, in flat_remap_mips+14 at 0x47654, on line 7020
- 64499351 in total
Used cycles:
- max = 15224620, in flat_remap_mips+18 at 0x47658, on line 7022
- 553392132 in total
Instruction cache misses:
- max = 184308, in _BM_T_GetTicks at 0x43b90, on line 4772
- 4941307 in total
Calls:
11.84% 187698 __toupper
11.48% 182105 _BM_T_GetTicks
11.48% 182019 _I_GetTime
[...]
Executed instructions:
34.83% 22462729 flat_generate_mips
14.08% 9080215 flat_remap_mips
8.55% 5515945 render_patch_direct
5.09% 3283328 _TryRunTics
[...]
Used cycles:
23.62% 130702768 flat_generate_mips
12.42% 68735832 flat_remap_mips
9.77% 54041148 _TryRunTics
5.80% 32111536 correct_element
[...]
Instruction cache misses:
37.03% 1829764 _TryRunTics
11.20% 553314 _BM_T_GetTicks
9.44% 466319 _NetUpdate
9.27% 457899 _HGetPacket
[...]
</pre>
<p>If you want to see also symbol addresses and what is per call
cost, add -i option:</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py -st <b>-i</b> -r program.sym program-profile.txt
[...]
Executed instructions:
34.83% 22462729 flat_generate_mips (0x04778a, 774576 / call)
14.08% 9080215 flat_remap_mips (0x047646, 313110 / call)
8.55% 5515945 render_patch_direct (0x047382, 29977 / call)
5.09% 3283328 _TryRunTics (0x042356, 19660 / call)
[...]
Used cycles:
23.62% 8.14728s 130702768 flat_generate_mips (0x04778a, 0.28094s / call)
12.42% 4.28461s 68735832 flat_remap_mips (0x047646, 0.14775s / call)
9.77% 3.36863s 54041148 _TryRunTics (0x042356, 0.02017s / call)
5.80% 2.00165s 32111536 correct_element (0x04a658, 0.00001s / call)
[...]
Instruction cache misses:
37.03% 1829764 _TryRunTics (0x042356, 10956 / call)
11.20% 553314 _BM_T_GetTicks (0x043b90, 3 / call)
9.44% 466319 _NetUpdate (0x041bcc, 5 / call)
9.27% 457899 _HGetPacket (0x041754, 5 / call)
[...]
</pre>
<p>(For cycles the "per call" information is in seconds, not as
a cost count.)</p>
<p>If your profile file contains caller information, you should
add -p option to see it, as that will also help in detecting symbol
issues (see <a href="#Interpreting_the_numbers">Interpreting
the numbers</a>):</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py -st <b>-p</b> -r program.sym program-profile.txt
[...]
9575 lines processed with 368 functions.
[...]
Of all 1570498 switches, ignored 581 for type(s) ['r', 'u', 'x'].
CPU profile information from 'badmood-level-load-CPU.txt':
- Hatari v1.6.2+ (May 4 2013), WinUAE CPU core
[...]
Calls:
11.84% 11.84% 187698 187698 __toupper
11.48% 11.48% 182105 182105 _BM_T_GetTicks
11.48% 22.95% 182019 364038 _I_GetTime
[...]
Executed instructions:
34.83% 34.86% 34.86% 22462729 22484024 22484024 flat_generate_mips
14.08% 14.10% 14.10% 9080215 9091270 9091676 flat_remap_mips
8.55% 5515945 render_patch_direct
5.09% 5.11% 94.96% 3283328 3294022 61247717 _TryRunTics
[...]
Used cycles:
23.62% 23.69% 23.69% 130702768 131100604 131100604 flat_generate_mips
12.42% 12.46% 12.46% 68735832 68928816 68930904 flat_remap_mips
9.77% 9.80% 95.66% 54041148 54238744 529368824 _TryRunTics
5.80% 5.82% 5.82% 32111536 32193664 32193664 correct_element
[...]
Instruction cache misses:
37.03% 37.14% 98.57% 1829764 1835261 4870573 _TryRunTics
11.20% 11.24% 11.24% 553314 555191 555191 _BM_T_GetTicks
9.44% 9.49% 29.13% 466319 468782 1439340 _NetUpdate
9.27% 9.29% 9.37% 457899 459197 463217 _HGetPacket
[...]
</pre>
<p>Now there's a message telling that some of the calls were ignored
because according to their "call type", they were actually returns from
exceptions, not real calls (this is mainly important for callgraph
generation, discussed below).</p>
<h4>Interpreting the results</h4>
<p>In addition to accuracy issues mentioned in previous Profiling
sections, function/symbol level costs have gotchas of their own.</p>
<p>The first cost percentage and count column are sums for costs
accounted for all the <em>addresses</em> that were in profile data file
<em>between the indicated symbol's address and the address of the next
symbol</em> (= "between-symbols" cost).</p>
<p><strong>NOTE:</strong> If your symbols file does not contain addresses
for all the relevant symbols, results from this can be misleading;
instruction costs get assigned to <em>whatever</em> symbol's address
happened to precede those instructions. And you do not see which
caller is causing it from caller info or callgraphs either, as entry
point for that time sink missing a symbol means calls to it had not
been tracked by profiler...</p>
<p>The next two percentages (and cost counts) are total cost of calls
to given subroutine, based on profiler runtime branch tracking (see
caller information documented above). First value is ("exclusive")
cost for just that subroutine (from its entry, until execution returns
to where it was called from), <em>without</em> costs for branches to
further subroutines. Latter value is ("inclusive") cost covering also
costs for all the subroutines it calls.</p>
<p>Reasons why "between-symbols" costs, and subroutine call costs
can differ, are following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Subroutine terminates before next symbol address: "exclusive" cost
is smaller than "between-symbols" cost <em>because of missing
symbol information</em>
(these are indicated with '*' in statistics).</li>
<li>Subroutine is called more through jumps/branches than through
subroutine calls (JSR/BSR): "inclusive" call count may be smaller
than "between-symbols" call count which includes costs also for
function entries through branches/jumps.</li>
<li>Subroutine jumps/branches to another function instead of
using subroutine call, or function contains additional
(non-function) labels: "exclusive" cost is larger than
"between-symbols" cost.</li>
<li>Exception happening during subroutine call: "exclusive" cost
is (slightly) larger than "between-symbols" cost.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the first case, you should check saved profile disassembly to
find out whether there are missing symbols for executed function entry
points. You can notice function entry points as address gaps and/or
instructions retrieving arguments from stack. Exit points can be seen
from RTS instructions.</p>
<p>Second case can also be seen from the profile disassembly. Call
count is same as count for how many times first instruction is executed
(worst case: large loop on subroutine's first instruction).</p>
<p>While subroutine costs should be more accurate and relevant, due to
code optimizations, many of the functions are not called as subroutines
(on m68k, using JSR/BSR), but just jumped or branched to. Because of
this, it is useful to compare both subroutine and "between-symbols"
costs. One should be able to see from the profile disassembly which
of the above cases is cause for the discrepancy in the values.</p>
<p><strong>NOTE:</strong> Before starting to do any serious
optimizations based on profile information, you should <em>always</em>
verify from profile disassembly where exactly the costs are in a
function, to make sure your optimization efforts can actually have
an impact on performance.</p>
<h4>Generating and viewing callgraphs</h4>
<p>Callgraphs require that saved profile data contains caller
function address information, i.e. symbols for the code should
be loaded before starting profiling it (see
<a href="#Debug_symbols">loading symbol data</a>).</p>
<p>Separate callgraphs will be created for each of the costs
(0=calls, 1=instructions, 2=cycles) with the -g option:</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py <b>-p -g</b> -r program.sym program-profile.txt
[...]
Generating 'program-profile-0.dot' DOT callgraph file...
Generating 'program-profile-1.dot' DOT callgraph file...
Generating 'program-profile-2.dot' DOT callgraph file...
[...]
</pre>
<p>Callgraphs are saved in <a href="http://www.graphviz.org/">GraphViz</a>
"dot" format. Dot files can be viewed:</p>
<ul>
<li>With "dotty" program included with GraphViz</li>
<li>With <a href="https://github.com/jrfonseca/xdot.py">XDot</a>
Python GUI (best option on Linux), or some platform specific viewer</li>
<li>By converting dot file to PostScript or SVG format before
viewing it with viewers for those:
<pre>
$ dot -Tsvg program-profile-1.dot > program-profile-1.svg
</pre>
(problem with most PS/PDF and SVG viewers is that either they
don't allow zooming large callgraphs enough or they use huge
amounts of memory and get very slow)
</li>
</ul>
<p>Produced callgraph will look like this:</p>
<div style="text-align:center">
<a href="images/callgraph.svg">
<img src="images/callgraph.png" width="953" height="589"
alt="Part of callgraph" />
</a>
</div>
<p>Interpreting the callgraph:</p>
<ul>
<li>Diamond shaped nodes are symbols called as subroutines.
Values listed in them are subroutine call costs; inclusive
(total) cost with exclusive (own) cost in parenthesis,
followed by inclusive cost count. Exclusive cost is
shown only if it differs from inclusive one.</li>
<li>Ellipse shaped nodes are for other symbols (functions
called using jumps/branches, loop labels etc). Values
listed in them are between-symbols costs, i.e. normally
they are included to inclusive (total) costs shown in
subroutine call node somewhere higher in call hierarchy.</li>
<li>Nodes which exclusive (own) or between-symbols costs
exceed default or explicitly given threshold value,
have gray background.</li>
<li>Both nodes, which inclusive or between-symbols cost exceeds
the threshold value, and the arrows to & from them,
are marked red.</li>
<li>Arrow types indicate call types; normal arrows subroutine
calls, circles branches/jumps, backarrows returns.
Exception calls and returns are indicated with dashed lines,
unknown calls with dotted lines.</li>
<li>Arrow text tells from which address (within the caller)
the call originated. If symbol had multiple callers, text
includes count of calls from that particular address, and its
percentage is of all calls done to that symbol.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Making large callgraphs readable</h4>
<p>
If profile is for larger and more varied amount of code (e.g. program startup),
the resulting callgraph can be so huge that it not really readable anymore.
</p>
<p>If your code has interrupt handlers, they can get called
at any point, which can show in callgraph as "explicit" calls
from the interrupted functions. To get rid of such incorrect
calls, give interrupt handler names to --ignore-to option:</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py -p -g <b>--ignore-to handler1,handler2</b> -r program.sym program-profile.txt
</pre>
<p>In large callgraph most of the functions aren't really interesting,
because their contribution to the cost is insignificant. You can
remove large number of them with --no-leafs and --no-intermediate
options, those options act <em>only</em> on nodes which costs are below
given threshold. Leaf nodes are ones which don't have any parents
and/or children. Intermediate ones have only single parent and
children (node calling itself is not taken into account).
<p>Threshold for this is given with the --limit (-l) option. With
that it typically makes also sense to change the node emphasis
threshold with --emph-limit (-e) option:</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py -p -g <b>-l 0.5 -e 2.0</b> -r program.sym program-profile.txt
</pre>
<p>If you are not interested in from how many different addresses
a given function calls another function, use --compact option. If you
still see multiple calls between two nodes with it, the reason is that
they happened through different call paths which were removed from
the callgraph after --compact option was applied:</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py -p -g -l 1.0 -e 2.0 <b>--no-leafs --no-intermediate --compact</b> -r program.sym program-profile.txt
</pre>
<p>If even this doesn't help, you can remove all nodes below
the given cost threshold limit with --no-limited option, but this
often doesn't leave much of a call hierarchy. Instead you may
consider removing all nodes except for subroutine call ones, with the
--only-subroutines option.</p>
<p>If you have trouble locating nodes you are specially interested
about, you can either color them differently with the --mark option,
or exclude everything else from the callgraph except those nodes and
their immediate callers & callees, with the --only option:</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py -p -g <b>--only func1,func2</b> -r program.sym program-profile.txt
</pre>
<p>Last option for reading the callgraph is using -k option to
export the data for use in (Linux) Kcachegrind UI. Kcachegrind generates
callgraphs on the fly, and just for the area around the function
you selected, so navigating in callgraph may be easier. It also
shows the related profile disassembly, which can make verifying
matters easier:</p>
<pre>
$ hatari_profile.py <b>-p -k</b> -r program.sym program-profile.txt
[...]
Generating callgrind file 'program-profile.cg'...
[...]
$ kcachegrind program-profile.cg
</pre>
<div style="text-align:center">
<img src="images/kcachegrind.png" width="887" height="442"
alt="Kcachegrind screenshot" />
</div>
<h3>Usage examples</h3>
<p>
Here's a list of some common debugging tasks and how to do them
with the Hatari debugger:
</p>
<dl>
<dt><em>Stopping on program startup and examining its data</em></dt>
<dd>Please see <a href="#Breakpoint_variables">Breakpoint variables</a>
and <a href="#Inspecting_emulation_state">Inspecting emulation state</a>
sections.
</dd>
<dt><em>Tracing specific things in the system</em></dt>
<dd>To trace e.g. all GEMDOS calls and I/O operations, use:
<pre>
trace gemdos,io_all
</pre>
Please see <a href="#Tracing">Tracing</a> section for more information
on tracing, what's possible with it and what are its limitations.
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping when certain PC address is passed Nth time</em></dt>
<dd>To stop e.g. after function/subroutine at $12345 is called for
the 6th time:
<pre>
a $12345 :6
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping when specific exception happens</em></dt>
<dd>If one wants a specific breakpoint to trigger on a specific
exception, one can check when its handler address is called by the
CPU. At the start of memory is the CPU exception table for exception
vectors. So, to stop e.g. at bus error with some extra information,
one can use following:
<pre>
history on
b pc=($8)
</pre>
After bus error invokes debugger, 'history' command can then be used
to see (executed memory addresses with their current) instructions
leading to the error. The most interesting vector addresses are:
$8 (Bus error), $C (Address error), $10 (Illegal instruction),
$14 (Division by zero).<br>
NOTE: Normally, to invoke debugger for larger set of exceptions, one
would use Hatari's "--debug-except" option to specify on which
exceptions debugger is invoked, and "setopt -D" to enable that on
run-time.
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping when register has a specific value</em></dt>
<dd>To stop when e.g. D1 register contains value 5, set a breakpoint on:
<pre>
b d1 = 5
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping when a register value changes</em></dt>
<dd>To stop when e.g. D1 register value changes, set a breakpoint on:
<pre>
b d1 ! d1
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping when part of register value changes</em></dt>
<dd>To stop when e.g. D1 register lowest byte changes, set a
breakpoint on masked lowest 8 bits:
<pre>
b d1 & 0xff ! d1 & 0xff
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping when register value is within some range</em></dt>
<dd>To stop when e.g. D1 register value is within range of 10-30,
set a breakpoint on:
<pre>
b d1 > 9 && d1 < 31
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping when memory location has a specific value</em></dt>
<dd>To stop when e.g. bit 1 of the Video Shifter Sync Mode byte at
I/O address $ff820a is set i.e. video frequency is 60Hz, set
a breakpoint on:
<pre>
b ($ff820a).b & 2 = 2
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping when a memory value changes</em></dt>
<dd>To stop when above bit changes, set a breakpoint on its value
being different from the current value ('!' compares for inequality):
<pre>
b ($ff820a).b & 2 ! ($ff820a).b & 2
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Tracing all changes in specific memory location</em></dt>
<dd>To see the new values and continue without stopping, add
the ":trace" breakpoint option:
<pre>
b ($ff820a).b & 2 ! ($ff820a).b & 2 :trace
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Finding specific data from memory</em></dt>
<dd>Find "ETOS" character string matches from ROM:
<pre>
find c 0xe00000 E T O S
</pre>
Find all potential (word aligned) RTS instructions from RAM:
<pre>
find w 0x0 0x4e75
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Values in different number base</em></dt>
<dd>To see values in different number bases, use "evaluate"
command. It can be used also with more complex expressions:
<pre>
> e ($ff8802).b & 0x7
value at ($ff8802).b = $27
= %111 (bin), #7 (dec), $7 (hex)
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Viewing OS structure and IO register values</em></dt>
<dd>To see e.g. basepage for currently running program:
<pre>
info basepage
</pre>
To see e.g. all Falcon Videl register values, use:
<pre>
info videl
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Showing OS attribute information for specific OS calls</em></dt>
<dd>To see e.g. VDI attributes for all v_gtext VDI calls:
<pre>
b VdiOpcode = $8 :quiet :info vdi
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping at specific screen position</em></dt>
<dd>To stop e.g. when VBL is 100, HBL is 40 and line cycles is 5,
use the corresponding debugger variables:
<pre>
b VBL = 100 && HBL = 40 && LineCycles = 5
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Stopping after value increases/decreases by certain amount</em></dt>
<dd>To stop e.g. after D0 value has increased by 10, set breakpoint on:
<pre>
b d0 = "d0 + 10"
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Examining specific system call return value</em></dt>
<dd>To check e.g. what's the Fopen() GEMDOS call return value,
check with "info gemdos 1" its opcode, set a breakpoint for that
and step to next (n) instruction from the trap call when breakpoint
is hit. GEMDOS call return value is then in register D0:
<pre>
> trace gemdos
> b GemdosOpcode = $3D
> c
[...continue until breakpoint...]
1. CPU breakpoint condition(s) matched 1 times.
GemdosOpcode = $3D
> n
GEMDOS 0x3D Fopen("TEST.TXT", read-only)
> e d0
= %1000000 (bin), #64 (dec), $40 (hex)
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Seeing code leading to a breakpoint</em></dt>
<dd>To see CPU instructions executed before debugger was entered,
you need to enable history tracking <em>before</em> it. Whenever
debugger is entered, you can then request given number (here 16) of
past PC addresses and their (current) instructions to be shown:
<pre>
history cpu
c
[breakpoint is hit and debugger entered]
history 16
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Getting instruction execution history for every breakpoint</em></dt>
<dd>
To see last 16 instructions for both CPU and DSP whenever
(a normal or tracing) breakpoint is hit:
<pre>
history on
lock history 16
c
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Single stepping so that new register values are shown after each step</em></dt>
<dd>
<pre>
lock registers
s
[new register values]
s
[new register values]
...
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Showing current stack contents</em></dt>
<dd>To see first 64 bytes on top of the stack, use:
<pre>
m "a7-64"-a7
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Seeing specific information each time debugger is entered</em></dt>
<dd>To see above information whenever some breakpoint is hit,
you enter debugger manually etc, write that command to e.g.
<span class="file">stack.ini</span> file and then use:
<pre>
lock file stack.ini
</pre>
Please see also <a href="#Chaining_breakpoints">Chaining breakpoints</a>
section for more examples on what you can do with the debugger input files.
</dd>
<dt><em>Adding cycle information to disassembly</em></dt>
<dd>Profiling collects cycle usage information for all executed instructions:
<pre>
profile on
c
[after a while, use AltGr+Pause to get back to debugger]
d
[or if you want to see just the executed instructions]
profile addresses
</pre>
Please see <a href="#Profiling">Profiling</a> section for more info.
</dd>
<dt><em>Finding where a program or the OS is stuck</em></dt>
<dd>Profiling tells from which addresses CPU is executing the instructions:
<pre>
profile on
c
[after a while, use AltGr+Pause to get back to debugger]
profile addresses
</pre>
Please see <a href="#Profiling">Profiling</a> section for more info.
</dd>
<dt><em>Profiling specific function and everything it calls</em></dt>
<dd>Set breakpoint for the function entrypoint and when it is hit,
enable profiling and continue to the end of the function:
<pre>
address myfunction
c
[back in debugger at myfunction]
profile on
next subreturn
[back in debugger when function returns]
</pre>
Please see <a href="#Profiling">Profiling</a> section on and how
to save and analyze profiling information after that, and
<a href="#Stepping">Stepping</a> section for some "next subreturn"
command limitations.
</dd>
<dt><em>Seeing program callstack when breakpoint is hit</em></dt>
<dd><a href="#Caller_information">Profiler caller data</a> includes
callstack information (with some limitations).
</dd>
<dt><em>Seeing call backtraces whenever given function is called</em></dt>
<dd>Enable profiling, load symbols for the program and set breakpoint
for the function you are interested about, in the following way:
<pre>
profile on
symbols prg
b pc = _my_function :quiet :noinit :file showstack.ini
</pre>
I.e. whenever 'my_function' address is called, quietly trigger a
breakpoint without resetting profiling (callstack) information and run
debugger command(s) from the 'showstack.ini' debugger script file,
which contains following command:
<pre>
profile stack
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><em>Seeing how program functions/symbols call each other</em></dt>
<dd><a href="#Profile_data_post_processing">Profile data
post-processing</a> can provide execution callgraphs.
</dd>
</dl>
<p>
Hint: for most of the above commands, one just needs to prefix them with
"d" (or "dsp" when using full command names) to do similar operation on
the DSP.
</p>
<h3 id="readline">Command line editing and libreadline</h3>
<p>
Hatari debugger is much nicer to use with the command line history,
editing and especially the completion support for the command, command
argument and symbol names. Like many other programs (Bash etc),
debugger uses libreadline to handle this.
</p>
<h4>Hatari building</h4>
<p>
If you are building Hatari yourself, please make sure that you have
the GNU readline development files installed (on Debian / Ubuntu these
come from the "libreadline*-dev" packages). Otherwise the name
completion and other features don't get enabled when you configure
Hatari.
</p>
<h4>Keyboard shortcuts</h4>
<p>
In addition to the normal line editing keys, libreadline supports
several keyboard shortcuts ('^' indicates Control-key):
</p>
<ul>
<li>Cursor movement (sometimes preferable over using arrow keys):</li>
<ul>
<li>^B - backward</li>
<li>^F - forward</li>
<li>^arrow - move by word</li>
<li>^A - start of line</li>
<li>^E - end of line</li>
<li>^P - previous line</li>
<li>^N - next line</li>
</ul>
<li>Cut / paste (relative to cursor position):</li>
<ul>
<li>^W - cut previous word (space separated)</li>
<li>^K - cut ("kill") to end of line</li>
<li>^U - cut to start of line</li>
<li>^Y - paste ("yank") deleted content</li>
</ul>
<li>Other text changes:</li>
<ul>
<li>^D - delete character</li>
<li>^T - transpose (switch) last 2 characters</li>
<li>^_ - undo last change</li>
</ul>
<li>Miscanellous:</li>
<ul>
<li>^R - history ("reverse") search</li>
<li>^L - clear screen and redraw line</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<p>
(Above shortcuts are inherited from Emacs text editor, and work also
in all shells using readline. See "man readline" on how to configure
them.)
</p>
</body>
</html>
|