Re: method calls and extra indirection

On Thursday 01 April 2004 03:18 am, Gomi Kapoor wrote:

> While converting the CIL code of A to CVM, the calls
> to B and C would be converted to call_extern (since B
> and C are not yet translated into CVM).

The "call_extern" opcode hasn't been used since pnet 0.3.6 (released in May 
2002).  What version are you looking at?  In version 0.3.8, "call" and 
"call_extern" were collapsed into a single opcode named "call" and the 
instruction was streamlined to reduce its overhead.

I think I did this because of threading: there is no thread-safe way to 
back-patch a "call_extern" to turn it into "call", without running the risk 
that another thread will get a corrupted instruction during the modification.  
I have since avoided back-patching as a solution.

> And a general question:
> What are the tools you generally use to read the code?
> (Sorry, I am a relatively new to Linux and feeling a
> bit cumbersome to statically read through the code.
> I tried debugging but with lots of macros in pnet, it
> is becoming quite difficult to debug)

There are a number of IDE's and graphical debuggers around (search on 
freshmeat.net).  Every pnet developer uses a different one, so I suggest that 
you try a few and see which one suits you best.  The file 
"pnet/engine/HACKING" also contains some tips on debugging the engine.

Cheers,

Rhys.