Validating program execution

The CREATOR CLI allows to validate the execution of a program.

For this, you first need to define a YAML validator file. This file must contain the expected final state of the program, as well as any additional options you want to set for the validation.

Validator File

[!NOTE] We provide a JSON schema for the validator file at https://creatorsim-community.github.io/creator-beta/schema/validator-file.json.

The validator file is a YAML file that can contain the following fields:

• maxCycles: The maximum number of cycles to run the program for validation. If the program exceeds this number of cycles, it will be considered invalid.
• floatThreshold: The maximum allowed error for floating point register comparisons.
• sentinel: A boolean indicating whether to enable sentinel checking (calling convention errors).
• state: An object defining the expected final state of the program, which can contain:
  • registers: A mapping of integer register names to their expected values.
  • floatRegisters: A mapping of floating point register names to their expected values.
  • memory: A mapping of memory addresses (as strings) to their expected byte values.
  • display: The expected contents of the display buffer as a string.

The validator will return, following POSIX conventions, 0 if its valid and 1 if it's not, writting the error message to the standard error stream (stderr).

Example

Quick example of a validator file:

maxCycles: 100
floatThreshold: 10e-10
sentinel: true
state:
  floatRegisters:
    f0: 0x40866666
  registers:
    sp: 0x0FFFFFFC
    a1: 0x0000005A
  memory:
    "0x200000": 0x45
  display: "-144"

Using the Validator

To use the validator file with CREATOR CLI, use the --validate option followed by the path to the validator YAML file. For example:

creator-cli -a RV32IMFD.yml -s assembly.s --validate config.yml