Re: [patch 1/4] Kprobes support for IA64

[Keith Owens <kaos@sgi.com>]

On Wed, 25 May 2005 10:00:18 -0400,
"Alan D. Brunelle" <Alan.Brunelle@hp.com> wrote:
>Isn't the real issue here that if kprobes attempts to put in a 'break
>0x80200' into a B-slot that it instead becomes a 'break.b 0' -- as the
>break.b does not accept an immediate value?

break.b is a B9 type instruction, which does take an imm21 value.  It
is the hardware that does not store imm21 in CR.IIM when break.b is
issued.

>Kprobes does have the two cases covered in traps.c (case 0 - when a
>B-slot break is used, and case 0x80200 for a non-B-slot break). But this
>doesn't seem very clean. (If it was decided that one should not overload
>the break 0 case, and instead use a uniquely defined break number, then
>it fails on a B-slot probe. If it is OK to overload the break 0 case,
>why have another break number at all?)

Mainly for documentation when looking at the assembler code.  break 0
is used for BUG(), coding a different value in the break instruction
for the debugger helps the person debugging the debugger :(.  I have no
problem with coding two cases in ia64_bad_break() in order to work
around the hardware "feature".

Also consider the case where your debugger allows users to code a
deliberate entry to the debugger, like KDB_ENTER().  That case always
requires a separate break imm21 value, because the break point is not
known to the debugger until the code is executed.