Hello,
We have found what seems a bug in the C compiler GCC 4.9.4 included in S32DS for PowerPC. This bug is reproducible with an unmodified SDK project example after setting optimization to "-Og". As a summary, the compiler appears to emit instructions that write to a reserved address (different behavior from the C source code), resulting in an exception of the CPU.
The steps to reproduce are very simple:
- Create a new Hello World project "hello_world_mpc5748g".
- In Project Settings -> C/C++ Build -> Settings, change "optimization level" to None, set "Other optimizations flags" to "-Og".
- Compile and flash.
To save you time, the resulting project is included in a 7z file here.
The resulting binary generates an IVOR1 exception. The instruction that cause the exception is at 0x01003374, but the previous one is also related, screenshot below:
Exception is raised when trying to execute 0x01003374 (store half-word). Let me put also a screenshot of the CPU registers right after the exception occurs:
What we have analysed:
-> "e_li r4, -2" --> R4 <= 0xFFFFFFFE, nothing harmful
-> "e_sth r4, 0x2C3E(r4)" ---> This is generating a 16 bit write of 0xFFFE to address (R4 + 0x2C3E) = 0x2C3C (?!?!)
This 16bit write to 0x2C3C seems the cause of the exception (in memory map of MPC5748G reference manual this area is marked as Reserved). Bits MCSR.BUS_WRERR=1, and address (MCSR.MAV=1) is MCAR=0x2C3C are coherent with the analysis.
Anyhow with the given C source code (which is part of the SDK), this 16-bit write doesn't make any sense. The C code is just applying bit masks to a variable in the stack.
Please let me know what you think, if this is indeed a bug in GCC or maybe we missed something.
Thanks!
