Has anybody come across a list of ARM & THUMB instructions that cause deviation from the linear instruction stream?
I've been trying to figure out gdb-stub single stepping using software interrupts, and in single stepping you need to find
the next instruction(s) where the next breakpoint instruction needs to be set.
There are three cases:
1) current instruction doesn't change the execution path. Next instruction is the next word.
2) current instruction is a jump. The operand defines the next instruction address
3) current instruction is conditional branch. One possible next instruction is the next word, the other possible
instruction address is defined by the operand. (That includes conditional add with PC as the target, and the like).
To implement single stepping, I need to tell those cases apart and figure out how to find out the possible branching address.
I could go through manuals of numerous processors instruction by instruction and maybe I'd be done within the next couple of years,
or I could find a list of instructions to check, or a paper that explains how to "decode" the instructions in a useful way.
Also, there doesn't seem to be lots of sources of ARM gdb servers or stubs around that use software breakpoints.
Any idea about instructions marked as UNPREDICTABLE: can it then be UNDEFINED?
In other words: UNDEFINED REQUIRES the instruction to cause UND-exception, but
MAY UNPREDICTABLE do that, or does it have to execute normally except that the result may be whatever?
(I'm not yelling even if I used caps.)
I think I need to let the Cortex-A experts answer this question.
Maybe Alban knows where to find information on this ?
Meanwhile forging ahead forging a head.
What the heck is "unsigned saturation of a signed value" (USAT)?
Where does signed manipulation change to unsigned manipulation?
operand = Shift(R[n], shift_t, shift_n, APSR.C); // APSR.C ignored (result, sat) = UnsignedSatQ(SInt(operand), saturate_to); R[d] = ZeroExtend(result, 32); (bits(N), boolean) UnsignedSatQ(integer i, integer N) if i > 2^N - 1 then result = 2^N - 1; saturated = TRUE; elsif i < 0 then result = 0; saturated = TRUE; else result = i; saturated = FALSE; return (result<N-1:0>, saturated);
operand = Shift(R[n], shift_t, shift_n, APSR.C); // APSR.C ignored
(result, sat) = UnsignedSatQ(SInt(operand), saturate_to);
R[d] = ZeroExtend(result, 32);
(bits(N), boolean) UnsignedSatQ(integer i, integer N)
if i > 2^N - 1 then
result = 2^N - 1; saturated = TRUE;
elsif i < 0 then
result = 0; saturated = TRUE;
else
result = i; saturated = FALSE;
return (result<N-1:0>, saturated);
Is it just one-sided saturation / "rectification"?
Got a very clear answer here: Re: UPREDICTABLE instructions .
UNPREDICTABLE may be implemented as UNDEFINED.