CS61C Summer 2017 Project 2-1: MIPS Assembler

TA: Nikhil Athreya

CS61C Summer 2017 Project 2-1: MIPS Assembler

TA: Nikhil Athreya

Due Thursday, July 6, 2017 @ 11:59:59 PM

Updates (Check here if there are updates in the future, announced on Piazza first)

To apply updates, please enter the following:
        git fetch su17-proj2-1-starter
        git merge su17-proj2-1-starter/master -m "merge proj2 update"

So What Is This About?

In this part of the project, we will be writing an assembler that translates a subset of the MIPS instruction set to machine code. Our assembler is a two-pass assembler similar to the one described in lecture. However, we will only assemble the .text segment. At a high level, the functionality of our assembler can be divided as follows:

Pass 1: Reads the input (.s) file

Pass 2: Read the intermediate (.int) file.

The Instruction Set

Please consult the MIPS Green Sheet for register numbers, instruction opcodes, and bitwise formats. Our asembler will support the following registers: $zero, $at, $v0, $a0 - $a3, $t0 - $t3, $s0 - $s3, $sp, $fp, and $ra (The name $0 can be used in lieu of $zero). Other register numbers (eg. $1, $2, etc.) are not supported.

We will have 23 instructions and 5 pseudoinstructions to assemble.

Instruction Format
Add Unsigned addu $rd, $rs, $rt
Or or $rd, $rs, $rt
Xor xor $rd, $rs, $rt
Set Less Than slt $rd, $rs, $rt
Set Less Than Unsigned sltu $rd, $rs, $rt
Jump Register jr $rs
Shift Left Logical sll $rd, $rt, shamt
Add Immediate Unsigned addiu $rt, $rs, immediate
Or Immediate ori $rt, $rs, immediate
Load Upper Immediate lui $rt, immediate
Load Byte lb $rt, offset($rs)
Load Byte Unsigned lbu $rt, offset($rs)
Load Word lw $rt, offset($rs)
Store Byte sb $rt, offset($rs)
Store Word sw $rt, offset($rs)
Branch on Equal beq $rs, $rt, label
Branch on Not Equal bne $rs, $rt, label
Jump j label
Jump and Link jal label
Mult mult $rs, $rt
Div div $rs, $rt
Move from $hi mfhi $rd
Move from $lo mflo $rd
How div works: $rd = $rs ./ $rt (./ is integer division)

Pseudoinstruction Format
Load Immediate li $rt, immediate
Pushes a register onto the stack push $rt
Pops a register from the stack pop $rt
Divides and return remainder mod $rd, $rs, $rt
Subtracts two numbers subu $rd, $rs, $rt

Implementation Steps

Please note that your project will be graded on the HIVE machines. While you are free to develop on other machines, you need to make sure that your code compiles and runs without errors on the hive machines before submitting. If you do not, you run the risk of turning in non-compiling code and getting a ZERO on the entire project.

Step 0: Obtaining the Files

To make this process go as smoothly as possible, make sure you:

  1. Make sure you have your Github SSH keys set up (lab00), otherwise the following commands will result in permission denied.
  2. Enter into the directory of your class account that you would like to hold your proj2-xxx-yyy repository.
    Once in this directory, run the following:
git clone https://<your Bitbucket username>@bitbucket.org/<your Bitbucket username>/proj2-1-XXX-YYY.git
or
git clone https://<your Bitbucket username>@bitbucket.org/<your Bitbucket username>/proj2-1-XXX.git

cd proj2-1-XXX-YYY
git remote add su17-proj2-1-starter https://github.com/61c-teach/su17-proj2-1-starter.git
git fetch su17-proj2-1-starter
git merge su17-proj2-1-starter/master -m "merge proj2 skeleton code"

You can compile you code by typing make. At first, you will get a bunch of -Wunused-variable and -Wunused-function warnings. The warnings tell you that variables/functions were declared, but were not used in your code. Don't worry, as you complete the assigment the warnings will go away.

Step 1: Building Blocks (src/translate_utils.c)

Step 2: SymbolTable (src/tables.c)

In this section, you will need to complete the implementation of SymbolTable data structure that will be used later. You will need to implement create_table(), free_table(), add_to_table(), get_addr_for_symbol() and write_table().

SymbolTable stores symbol name-to-address mappings. Multiple SymbolTables may be created at the same time, and each must resize to fit an arbitrary number of entries (so you should use dynamic memory allocation). A SymbolTable struct has been defined in src/tables.h, and you should use the existing implementation. NO CHANGE IS NEEDED IN src/table.h, or you will throw the autograder off. However, feel free to add in helper methods in src/table.c if you need them.

You must make sure to free all memory that you allocate. See the Valgrind section under testing for more information.

Step 3: Instruction Translation (src/translate.c)

Implement translate_inst() in src/translate.c. The MIPS Green Sheet will again be helpful and perhaps even necessary, and so will bitwise operations.

If a branch offset cannot fit inside the immediate field, you should treat it as an error.

Step 4: Pseudoinstruction Expansion (src/translate.c)

Implement write_pass_one(), which should perform pseudoinstruction expansion on the load immediate (li), pushes a register onto the stack (push), pops a register from the stack (pop), divides and return remainder (mod), subtracts two numbers (subu).

Pseudoinstruction Translation Table
name instruction syntax translation meaning
li li $rd, IMMED[31:0] lui $rd, IMMED[31:16];
ori $rd,$rd, IMMED[15:0];
$rd = 32 bit Immediate value
push push $rt addiu $sp, $sp, -4;
sw $rt, 0($sp);
$sp = $sp - 4;
Mem[$sp] = $rt;
pop pop $rt lw $rt, 0($sp);
addiu $sp, $sp, 4;
$rt = Mem[$sp];
$sp = $sp + 4;
mod mod $rd, $rs, $rt div $rs, $rt;
mfhi $rd;
$rd = $rs % $rt
subu subu $rd, $rs, $rt addiu $at, $0, -1;
xor $at, $at, $rt;
addiu $at, $at, 1;
addu $rd, $rs, $at;
$rd = $rs - $rt
Note: we will use translation opimization for certain IMMED (more explanation below).

The li instruction normally gets expanded into an lui-ori pair. However, an optimization can be made when the immediate is small. If the immediate can fit inside the imm field of an addiu instruction, we will use an addiu instruction instead. Other assemblers may implement additional optimizations, but ours will not.

Also, make sure that your pseudoinstruction expansions do not produce any unintended side effects. You will also be performing some error checking on the pseudoinstructions (see src/translate.c for details). If there is an error, do NOT write anything to the intermediate file, and return 0 to indicate that 0 lines have been written.

Friendly reminder: when you are expanding pseudoinstructions to multiple instructions, make sure each line in the .out file only contains one instruction!

Step 5: Putting It All Together (assembler.c)

Implement pass_one() and pass_two().

Before you begin, make sure you understand the documentation of fgets() and strtok(). It will be easier to implement pass_two() first. The comments in the function will give a more detailed outline of what to do, as well as what assumptions you may make. Your program should not exit if a line contains an error. Instead, keep track of whether any errors have occured, and if so, return -1 at the end. pass_one() should be structured similarly to pass_two(), except that you will also need to parse out comments and labels. You will find the skip_comment() and add_if_label() functions useful.

As an aside, our parser is much more lenient than an actual MIPS parser. Building a good parser is outside the scope of this course, but we encourage you to learn about finite state automata if you are interested.

Line Numbers and Byte Offsets

When parsing, you will need to keep track of two numbers, the line number of the input file and the byte offset of the current instruction. Line numbers start at 1, and include whitespace. The byte offset refers to how far away the current instruction is from the first instruction, and does NOT include whitespace. You can think of the byte offset as where each instruction will be if the instructions were loaded into memory starting at address 0. See below for an example.

The address of a label is the byte offset of the next instruction. In the example below, L1 has an address of 4 (since the next instruction is lw, whose address is 4) and L2 has an address of 8 (since the next instruction is ori, whose address is 8).

Line # Input File
1     addiu $t0 $a0 0
2 L1: lw $t1 0($t0)
3 # This is a comment
4 L2:
5     ori $t1 $t1 0xABCD
6     addiu $t1 $t1 3
7
8     bne $t1 $a2 L2

Output File Byte Offset
addiu $t0 $a0 0 0
lw $t1 0($t0) 4
ori $t1 $t1 0xABCD 8
addiu $t1 $t1 3 12
bne $t1 $a2 label_2 16

Error Handling

If an input file contains an error, we only require that your program print the correct error messages. The contents of your .int and .out files do not matter.

There are two kinds of errors you can get: errors with instructions and errors with labels. Error checking of labels is done for you by add_if_label(). However, you will still need to record that an error has occurred so that pass_one() can return -1.

In pass_one(), errors with instructions can be raised by 1) write_pass_one() or 2) the instruction having too many arguments. In pass_two(), errors with instructions will only be raised by translate_inst(). Both write_pass_one() and translate_inst() should return a special value (0 and -1 respectively) in the event of an error. You will need to detect whether an instuction has too many arguments yourself in pass_one().

Whenever an error is encountered in either pass_one() or pass_two(), record that there is an error and move on. Do not exit the function prematurely. When the function exits, return -1.

For information about testing error message, please see the "Error Message Testing" section under "Running the Assembler".

Step 6: Testing (NO, DO NOT JUST SKIP THIS SECTION.)

You are responsible for testing your code. While we have provided a few test cases, they are by no means comprehensive. In the previous semester's rendition of the project, it was heavily reflected in student grades who and who did not test their code. Fortunately, you have a variety of testing tools at your service.

Unit testing in C

In order to make automated testing easier for you, we've hooked up a framework called CUnit. You can learn more about CUnit here.

Note: CUnit tests must be compiled on either the hive or the Soda 2nd floor machines, or you will get compilation errors.

All of your unit tests will live in test_assembler.c. We've provided two example test suites, each containing two tests, along with test suite initialization functions to make your life easier.

We have set up some unit tests in test_assembler.c. You can run them by typing:

make test-assembler

You are encouraged to write more tests than the ones that we have given.

What is a "suite"?

A test suite is essentially a collection of tests. To add test suites, you can use the following boilerplate code in test_assembler.c. Two examples of this are already provided.

Creating the Test Suite

You'll need to add the following code in main() once per test suite:

[... inside of main() in test_assembler.c  ...]
[ Replace pSuiteN below with a suitable name, like pSuite5 ]

CU_pSuite pSuiteN = NULL; // replace N with the test number
/* add a suite to the registry */

/* You don't necessarily have to use the same init and clean functions for
 * each suite. You can specify the function names in the next line:
 */
pSuiteN = CU_add_suite("Suite_N", NULL, NULL);
if (NULL == pSuiteN) {
   CU_cleanup_registry();
   return CU_get_error();
}
This is the doucmentation for add_suite:
CU_pSuite CU_add_suite(const char* strName, CU_InitializeFunc pInit, CU_CleanupFunc pClean)
pUnit and pClean are optional. In the 2nd suite that we provided, pUnit is set to init_log_file because you are able to save to a log file (see init_log_file() for details).

Adding Tests to the Suite

You'll need to add the lines below for each test function that you want to add to the suite. In the example below, we are adding the function simple_sample_test to the suite.

[... also inside of main() in test-assembler.c ...]
/* Add test named simple_sample_test to Suite #N */
if (NULL == CU_add_test(pSuiteN, "Simple Test #N", simple_sample_test))
{
   CU_cleanup_registry();
   return CU_get_error();
}

How Tests Are Run

CUnit performs the following actions when running a test suite:

  1. Runs the suite initialization function. In the above code, this function is called init_suite.
  2. Runs all of the tests you added to the suite. In the above example, this runs only the function named simple_sample_test.
  3. Runs the suite cleanup function. In the above code, this function is called clean_suite.

Valgrind

You should use Valgrind to check whether your code has any memory leaks. We have included a file, run-valgrind, which will run Valgrind on any executable of your choosing. If you get a permission denied error, try changing adding the execute permission to the file:

chmod u+x run-valgrind

Then you can run by typing:

./run-valgrind <whatever program you want to run>

For example, you wanted to see whether running ./assembler -p1 input/simple.s out/simple.int would cause any memory leaks, you should run ./run-valgrind ./assembler -p1 input/simple.s out/simple.int.

MARS

Since you're writing an assembler, why not refer to an existing assembler? MARS is a powerful reference for you to use, and you are encouraged to write your own MIPS files and assemble them using MARS.

Warning: in some cases the output of MARS will differ from the specifications of this project. You should always follow the specs. This is because MARS 1) supports more pseudoinstructions, 2) has slightly different pseudoinstruction expansion rules, and 3) acts as an assembler and linker. For example, MARS may expand an addiu with a 32-bit immediate into li followed by an addiu instruction. Not only will the machine code be different, but the addresses of any labels will also be different. Therefore, you should always examine the assembled instructions carefully when testing with MARS. Additionally, for our own pseudoinstructions, i.e. pop, push, mod, and subu, MARS will not generate the correct hex, since how we implemented them is local to our assembler. And to reiterate, the li pseudoinstruction could be expanded definitely by MARS so be sure to follow the spec.

MARS also supports an assemble-only mode via the command-line (see documentation here). To save assembled output to a text file, run:

mars a dump .text HexText <output location> <input MIPS file>

Diff (this should be your best friend for this project)

diff is a utility for comparing the contents of files. Running the following command will print out the differences between file1 and file2:

diff <file1> <file2>

To see how to interpret diff results, click here. We have provided some sample input-output pairs (again, these are not comprehensive tests) located in the input and out/ref directories respectively. For example, to check the output of running simple.s on your assembler against the expected output, run:

./assembler input/simple.s out/simple.int out/simple.out 
diff out/simple.out out/ref/simple_ref.out

Running the Assembler

First, make sure your assembler executable is up to date by running make.

By default, the assembler runs two passes. The first pass reads an input file and translates it into an intermediate file. The second pass reads the intermediate file and translates it into an output file. To run both passes, type:

./assembler <input file> <intermediate file> <output file>

Alternatively, you can run only a single pass, which may be helpful while debugging. To run only the first pass, use the -p1 flag:

./assembler <-p1> <input file> <intermediate file>

To run only the second pass, use the -p2 flag. Note that when running pass two only, your symbol and relocation table will be empty since labels were stripped in pass_one(), so it may affect your branch instructions.

./assembler <-p2> <intermediate file> <output file>

When testing cases that should produce error messages, you may want to use the -log flag to log error messages to a text file. The -log flag should be followed with the location of the output file (WARNING: old contents will be overwritten!), and it can be used with any of the three modes above.

Error Message Testing

We have provided two tests for error messages, one for errors that should be raised during pass_one(), and one for errors that should be raised during pass_two(). To test for pass_one() errors, assemble input/p1_errors.s with the -p1 flag and verify that your output matches the expected output:

./assembler -p1 input/p1_errors.s out/p1_errors.int -log log/p1_errors.txt
diff log/p1_errors.txt log/ref/p1_errors_ref.txt

To test for pass_two() errors, assemble input/p2_errors.s running both passes:

./assembler input/p2_errors.s out/p2_errors.int out/p2_errors.out -log log/p2_errors.txt
diff log/p2_errors.txt log/ref/p2_errors_ref.txt

Your intermediate and output files (.int and .out files) do NOT need to match the reference output if the input file contains an error.

Submission

Did you test thoroughly on the hive machines? If you do not, you risk getting a ZERO on the entire project.

There are two steps required to submit proj2-1. Failure to perform both steps will result in loss of credit:

  1. First, you must submit using the standard unix submit program on the instructional servers. This assumes that you followed the earlier instructions and did all of your work inside of your git repository. To submit, follow these instructions after logging into your cs61c-XX class account:

    cd ~/work/proj2-XXX-YYY                            # Or where your shared git repo is
    submit proj2-1

    Once you type submit proj2-1, follow the prompts generated by the submission system. It will tell you when your submission has been successful and you can confirm this by looking at the output of glookup -t.


  2. Additionally, you must submit proj2-1 to your shared Github repository:

    cd ~/proj2-XXX-YYY                             # Or where your shared git repo is
    git add -u                           
    git commit -m "project 2-1 submission"  
    git tag "proj2-1-sub"                        # The tag MUST be "proj2-1-sub". Failure to do so will result in loss of credit.
    git push origin proj2-1-sub                  # This tells git to push the commit tagged proj2-1-sub

Resubmitting

If you need to re-submit, you can follow the same set of steps that you would if you were submitting for the first time, but you will need to use the -f flag to tag and push to Github:

# Do everything as above until you get to tagging
git tag -f "proj2-1-sub"
git push -f origin proj2-1-sub

Note that in general, force pushes should be used with caution. They will overwrite your remote repository with information from your local copy. As long as you have not damaged your local copy in any way, this will be fine.