Getting Source Code for PAs

Getting Source Code

Go back to the home directory by

cd ~

Usually, all works unrelated to system should be performed under the home directory. Other directories under the root of file system (/) are related to system. Therefore, do NOT finish your PAs and Labs under these directories by sudo.

Now get the source code for PA by the following command:

git clone -b 2024 git@github.com:NJU-ProjectN/ics-pa.git ics2024

A directory called ics2024 will be created. This is the project directory for PAs. Details will be explained in PA1.

Then issue the following commands to perform git configuration:

git config --global user.name "231220000-Zhang San" # your student ID and name
git config --global user.email "zhangsan@foo.com"   # your email
git config --global core.editor vim                 # your favorite editor
git config --global color.ui true

You should configure git with your student ID, name, and email. Before continuing, please read this git tutorial to learn some basics of git. Another material recommended by jyy is Visualizing Git Concepts with D3. You can learn some git commands with the help of visualization.

Enter the project directory ics2024, then run

git branch -m master
bash init.sh nemu
bash init.sh abstract-machine

to initialize some subprojects. The script will pull some subprojects from github. We will explain them later.

Besides, the script will also add some environment variables into the bash configuration file ~/.bashrc. These variables are defined by absolute path to support the compilation of the subprojects. Therefore, DO NOT move your project to another directory once finishing the initialization, else these variables will become invalid. Particularly, if you use shell other than bash, please set these variables in the corresponding configuration file manually.

To let the environment variables take effect, run

source ~/.bashrc

Then try

echo $NEMU_HOME
echo $AM_HOME
cd $NEMU_HOME
cd $AM_HOME

to check whether these environment variables get the right paths. If both the echo commands report the right paths, and both the cd command change to the target paths without errors, we are done. If not, please double check the steps above and the shell you are using.

Git usage

We will use the branch feature of git to manage the process of development. A branch is an ordered list of commits, where a commit refers to some modifications in the project.

You can list all branches by

git branch

You will see there is only one branch called "master" now.

* master

To create a new branch, use git checkout command:

git checkout -b pa0

This command will create a branch called pa0, and check out to it. Now list all branches again, and you will see we are now at branch pa0:

  master
* pa0

From now on, all modifications of files in the project will be recorded in the branch pa0.

Now have a try! Modify the STUID and STUNAME variables in ics2024/Makefile:

STUID = 231220000  # your student ID
STUNAME = 张三     # your Chinese name

Run

git status

to see those files modified from the last commit:

On branch pa0
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

    modified:   Makefile

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

Run

git diff

to list modifications from the last commit:

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index c9b1708..b7b2e02 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-STUID = 231220000
-STUNAME = 张三
+STUID = 231221234
+STUNAME = 李四

  # DO NOT modify the following code!!!

You should see STUID and STUNAME are modified. Now add the changes to commit by git add, and issue git commit:

git add .
git commit

The git commit command will call the text editor. Type modified my info in the first line, and keep the remaining contents unchanged. Save and exit the editor, and this finishes a commit. Now you should see a log labeled with your student ID and name by

git log

Now switch back to the master branch by

git checkout master

Open ics2024/Makefile, and you will find that STUID and STUNAME are still unchanged! By issuing git log, you will find that the commit log you just created has disappeared!

Don't worry! This is a feature of branches in git. Modifications in different branches are isolated, which means modifying files in one branch will not affect other branches. Switch back to pa0 branch by

git checkout pa0

You will find that everything comes back! At the beginning of PA1, you will merge all changes in branch pa0 into master.

The workflow above shows how you will use branch in PAs:

• before starting a new PA, new a branch pa? and check out to it
• coding in the branch pa? (this will introduce lot of modifications)
• after finish the PA, merge the branch pa? into master, and check out back to master

Compiling and Running NEMU

Now enter nemu/ directory. Before the first time to compile NEMU, a configuration file should be generated by

make menuconfig

A menu will pop up. DO NOT modify anything. Just choose Exit and Yes to save the new configuration. After that, compile the project by make:

make

If nothing goes wrong, NEMU will be compiled successfully.

To perform a fresh compilation, type

make clean

to remove the old compilation result, then make again.

To run NEMU, type

make run

riscv32-nemu-interpreter: src/utils/disasm.c:29: void init_disasm(): Assertion `dl_handle' failed.

However, you will see an error message:

[src/monitor/monitor.c:35 welcome] Exercise: Please remove me in the source code and compile NEMU again.
riscv32-nemu-interpreter: src/monitor/monitor.c:36: welcome: Assertion `0' failed.

This message tells you that the program has triggered an assertion fail at line 36 of the file nemu/src/monitor/monitor.c. If you do not know what is assertion, blame the 程序设计基础 course. But just ignore it now, and you will fix it in PA1.

To debug NEMU with gdb, type

make gdb

Development Tracing

Once the compilation succeeds, the change of source code will be traced by git. Type

git log

If you see something like

commit 4072d39e5b6c6b6837077f2d673cb0b5014e6ef9
Author: tracer-ics2024 <tracer@njuics.org>
Date:   Sun Jul 26 14:30:31 2024 +0800

    >  run NEMU
    231220000 张三
    Linux 9900k 5.10.0-10-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.84-1 (2021-12-08) x86_64 GNU/Linux
    15:57:01 up 22 days,  6:01, 16 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

this means the change is traced successfully.

If you see the following message while executing make, this means the tracing fails.

fatal: Unable to create '/home/user/ics2024/.git/index.lock': File exists.

If no other git process is currently running, this probably means a
git process crashed in this repository earlier. Make sure no other git
process is running and remove the file manually to continue.

Try to clean the compilation result and compile again:

make clean
make

If the error message above always appears, please contact us as soon as possible.

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index c9b1708..b7b2e02 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -9,6 +9,6 @@
 define git_commit
-  -@git add .. -A --ignore-errors
-  -@while (test -e .git/index.lock); do sleep 0.1; done
-  -@(echo "> $(1)" && echo $(STUID) $(STUNAME) && uname -a && uptime) | git commit -F - $(GITFLAGS)
-  -@sync
+# -@git add .. -A --ignore-errors
+# -@while (test -e .git/index.lock); do sleep 0.1; done
+# -@(echo "> $(1)" && echo $(STUID) $(STUNAME) && uname -a && uptime) | git commit -F - $(GITFLAGS)
+# -@sync
 endef

Local Commit

Although the development tracing system will trace the change of your code after every successful compilation, the trace record is not suitable for your development. This is because the code is still buggy at most of the time. Also, it is not easy for you to identify those bug-free traces. Therefore, you should trace your bug-free code manually.

When you want to commit the change, type

git add .
git commit --allow-empty

The --allow-empty option is necessary, because usually the change is already committed by development tracing system. Without this option, git will reject no-change commits. If the commit succeeds, you can see a log labeled with your student ID and name by

git log

To filter out the commit logs corresponding to your manual commit, use --author option with git log. For details about how to use this option, RTFM.

Writing Report

Submission

Finally, you should submit your project to the submission website (具体提交方式请咨询ICS实验课程老师). To submit PA0, put your report file (ONLY .pdf file is accepted) under the project directory.

ics2024
├── 231220000.pdf   # put your report file here
├── abstract-machine
├── fceux-am
├── init.sh
├── Makefile
├── nemu
└── README.md

Double check whether everything is fine. In particular, you should check whether your .pdf file can be opened with a PDF reader.

RTFSC and Enjoy

If you are new to GNU/Linux and finish this tutorial by yourself, congratulations! You have learned a lot! The most important, you have learned STFW and RTFM for using new tools and trouble-shooting. (反思一下, 你真的做到了吗?) With these skills, you can solve lots of troubles by yourself during PAs, as well as in the future.

In PA1, the first thing you will do is to RTFSC. If you have troubles during reading the source code, go to RTFM:

• If you can not find the definition of a function, it is probably a library function. Read man for more information about that function.
• If you can not understand the code related to hardware details, refer to the manual.

By the way, you will use C language for programming in all PAs. Here is an excellent tutorial about C language. It contains not only C language (such as how to use printf() and scanf()), but also other elements in a computer system (data structure, computer architecture, assembly language, linking, operating system, network...). It covers most parts of this course. You are strongly recommended to read this tutorial.

Finally, enjoy the journey of PAs, and you will find hardware is not mysterious, so does the computer system! But remember:

• STFW
• RTFM
• RTFSC