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ARM HAL issues.


Hello,

Recently I worked with the eCos ARM HAL got from the public CVS
repository and found some pieces of code that look strange/buggy for me:

1. Entry to hal_thread_switch_context looks buggy.

FUNC_START_ARM(hal_thread_switch_context, r2)
        sub     ip,sp,#20   // skip svc_sp, svc_lr, vector, cpsr, and pc
        stmfd   ip!,{sp,lr}
        mov     sp,ip
        ...

Please notice that sp and lr are saved on the current stack outside the
current stack boundaries and only in the next instruction the stack
pointer is advanced to include the saved values. Should an interrupt
occur between stmfd and mov instructions, the saved sp and lr could
well be clobbered. Here is a suggested fix (that besides avoids using of
the magic number):

FUNC_START_ARM(hal_thread_switch_context, r2)
        mov     ip,sp
        sub     sp,sp,#(ARMREG_SIZE - armreg_lr - 4)
        stmfd   sp!,{ip,lr}
        ...


2. IRQ disable in hal_thread_load_context.

FUNC_START_ARM(hal_thread_load_context, r2)
        ldr     fp,[r0]                 // get context to restore
        mrs     r0,cpsr                 // disable IRQ's
        orr     r0,r0,#CPSR_IRQ_DISABLE|CPSR_FIQ_DISABLE
        msr     cpsr,r0
        ...

I failed to find disabling of IRQs in the context switch/load routines
in any other eCos HAL. Is it indeed necessary to disable IRQs here?

3. Vague comment in vectors.S.

What I mean is the following:

IRQ:
        // Note: I use this exception stack while saving the context because
        // the current SP does not seem to be always valid in this CPU mode.
        ldr     sp,.__exception_stack   // get good stack
        stmfd   sp!,{r0-r5}             // save some supervisor regs

What could be the cause of IRQ mode SP being invalid? Is it deficiency
of some ARM chip implementation, hiding HAL bug, or what?

-- 
Sergei.

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