北航深入理解计算机系统,北航《计算机系统》ComputerSystems 08-1-exceptions.pdf

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 Exceptional Control Flow

 Processes

1

Control Flow

 Processors do only one thing:

 From startup to shutdown, a CPU simply reads and executes

(interprets) a sequence of instructions, one at a time

 This sequence is the CPU’s control flow (or flow of control )

Physical control flow

inst

1

inst

Time 2

inst

3

…

inst

n

2

Altering the Control Flow

 Up to now: two mechanisms for changing control flow:

 Jumps and branches

 Call and return

Both react to changes in program state

 React to changes in system state

 data arrives from a disk or a network adapter

 instruction divides by zero

 user hits Ctrl-C at the keyboard

 System timer expires

 System needs mechanisms for “exceptional control flow” (ECF)

3

Exceptional Control Flow

 Exists at all levels of a computer syste

 Low level mechanisms

 Exceptions

 change in control flow in response to a system event

(i.e., change in system state)

 Combination of hardware and OS software

 Higher level echanisms

 Process context switch

 Signals

 Nonlocal jumps: setjmp() / longjmp()

 Implemented by either:

 OS software (context switch and signals)

 C language runtime library (n