ruby: reverts to changeset: bf82f1f7b040

ruby: slicc: use default argument value
Before this patch, while one could declare / define a function with default
argument values, but the actual function call would require one to specify
all the arguments. This patch changes the check for function arguments.
Now a function call needs to specify arguments that are at least as much as
those with default values and at most the total number of arguments taken
as input by the function.

ruby: slicc: change the way configurable members are specified
There are two changes this patch makes to the way configurable members of a
state machine are specified in SLICC. The first change is that the data
member declarations will need to be separated by a semi-colon instead of a
comma. Secondly, the default value to be assigned would now use SLICC's
assignment operator i.e. ':='.

SLICC: Use pointers for directory entries
SLICC uses pointers for cache and TBE entries but not for directory entries.
This patch changes the protocols, SLICC and Ruby memory system so that even
directory entries are referenced using pointers.

SLICC: Pass arguments by reference
Arguments to functions were being passed by value. This patch
changes SLICC so that arguments are passed by reference.

Ruby: Simplify SLICC and Entry/TBE handling.
Before this changeset, all local variables of type Entry and TBE were considered
to be pointers, but an immediate use of said variables would not be automatically
deferenced in SLICC-generated code. Instead, deferences occurred when such
variables were passed to functions, and were automatically dereferenced in
the bodies of the functions (e.g. the implicitly passed cache_entry).

This is a more general way to do it, which leaves in place the
assumption that parameters to functions and local variables of type AbstractCacheEntry
and TBE are always pointers, but instead of dereferencing to access member variables
on a contextual basis, the dereferencing automatically occurs on a type basis at the
moment a member is being accessed. So, now, things you can do that you couldn't before
include:

Entry foo := getCacheEntry(address);
cache_entry.DataBlk := foo.DataBlk;

or

cache_entry.DataBlk := getCacheEntry(address).DataBlk;

or even

cache_entry.DataBlk := static_cast(Entry, pointer, cache.lookup(address)).DataBlk;

Change interface between coherence protocols and CacheMemory
The purpose of this patch is to change the way CacheMemory interfaces with
coherence protocols. Currently, whenever a cache controller (defined in the
protocol under consideration) needs to carry out any operation on a cache
block, it looks up the tag hash map and figures out whether or not the block
exists in the cache. In case it does exist, the operation is carried out
(which requires another lookup). As observed through profiling of different
protocols, multiple such lookups take place for a given cache block. It was
noted that the tag lookup takes anything from 10% to 20% of the simulation
time. In order to reduce this time, this patch is being posted.

I have to acknowledge that the many of the thoughts that went in to this
patch belong to Brad.

Changes to CacheMemory, TBETable and AbstractCacheEntry classes:
1. The lookup function belonging to CacheMemory class now returns a pointer
to a cache block entry, instead of a reference. The pointer is NULL in case
the block being looked up is not present in the cache. Similar change has
been carried out in the lookup function of the TBETable class.
2. Function for setting and getting access permission of a cache block have
been moved from CacheMemory class to AbstractCacheEntry class.
3. The allocate function in CacheMemory class now returns pointer to the
allocated cache entry.

Changes to SLICC:
1. Each action now has implicit variables - cache_entry and tbe. cache_entry,
if != NULL, must point to the cache entry for the address on which the action
is being carried out. Similarly, tbe should also point to the transaction
buffer entry of the address on which the action is being carried out.
2. If a cache entry or a transaction buffer entry is passed on as an
argument to a function, it is presumed that a pointer is being passed on.
3. The cache entry and the tbe pointers received __implicitly__ by the
actions, are passed __explicitly__ to the trigger function.
4. While performing an action, set/unset_cache_entry, set/unset_tbe are to
be used for setting / unsetting cache entry and tbe pointers respectively.
5. is_valid() and is_invalid() has been made available for testing whether
a given pointer 'is not NULL' and 'is NULL' respectively.
6. Local variables are now available, but they are assumed to be pointers
always.
7. It is now possible for an object of the derieved class to make calls to
a function defined in the interface.
8. An OOD token has been introduced in SLICC. It is same as the NULL token
used in C/C++. If you are wondering, OOD stands for Out Of Domain.
9. static_cast can now taken an optional parameter that asks for casting the
given variable to a pointer of the given type.
10. Functions can be annotated with 'return_by_pointer=yes' to return a
pointer.
11. StateMachine has two new variables, EntryType and TBEType. EntryType is
set to the type which inherits from 'AbstractCacheEntry'. There can only be
one such type in the machine. TBEType is set to the type for which 'TBE' is
used as the name.

All the protocols have been modified to conform with the new interface.

ruby: Ruby changes required to use the python config system
This patch includes the necessary changes to connect ruby objects using
the python configuration system. Mainly it consists of removing
unnecessary ruby object pointers and connecting the necessary object
pointers using the generated param objects. This patch includes the
slicc changes necessary to connect generated ruby objects together using
the python configuraiton system.

ruby: Make SLICC-generated objects SimObjects.
Also add SLICC support for state-machine parameter defaults
(passed through to Python as SimObject Param defaults).

slicc: Pure python implementation of slicc.
This is simply a translation of the C++ slicc into python with very minimal
reorganization of the code. The output can be verified as nearly identical
by doing a "diff -wBur".

Slicc can easily be run manually by using util/slicc