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Semihosting for AArch32 and AArch64

2023Q3

Date of Issue: 6th October 2023

1   Preamble

1.1   Abstract

This document describes the Arm® semihosting mechanism, and its extensions.

1.2   Keywords

Semihosting

1.3   Latest release and defects report

Please check Application Binary Interface for the Arm® Architecture for the latest release of this document.

Please report defects in this specification to the issue tracker page on GitHub.

1.4   Licence

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this license (both the Public License and this Patent License), each Licensor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Licensed Material, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Licensor that are necessarily infringed by their contribution(s) alone or by combination of their contribution(s) with the Licensed Material to which such contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Licensed Material or a contribution incorporated within the Licensed Material constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any licenses granted to You under this license for that Licensed Material shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

1.5   About the license

As identified more fully in the Licence section, this project is licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0 along with an additional patent license. The language in the additional patent license is largely identical to that in Apache-2.0 (specifically, Section 3 of Apache-2.0 as reflected at https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0) with two exceptions.

First, several changes were made related to the defined terms so as to reflect the fact that such defined terms need to align with the terminology in CC-BY-SA-4.0 rather than Apache-2.0 (e.g., changing “Work” to “Licensed Material”).

Second, the defensive termination clause was changed such that the scope of defensive termination applies to “any licenses granted to You” (rather than “any patent licenses granted to You”). This change is intended to help maintain a healthy ecosystem by providing additional protection to the community against patent litigation claims.

1.6   Contributions

Contributions to this project are licensed under an inbound=outbound model such that any such contributions are licensed by the contributor under the same terms as those in the Licence section.

1.7   Trademark notice

The text of and illustrations in this document are licensed by Arm under a Creative Commons Attribution–Share Alike 4.0 International license ("CC-BY-SA-4.0”), with an additional clause on patents. The Arm trademarks featured here are registered trademarks or trademarks of Arm Limited (or its subsidiaries) in the US and/or elsewhere. All rights reserved. Please visit https://www.arm.com/company/policies/trademarks for more information about Arm’s trademarks.

1.8   Copyright

Copyright (c) 2016, 2020-2023, Arm Limited and its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Contents

2   About this document

2.1   Change control

2.1.1   Current status and anticipated changes

The following support level definitions are used by the Arm ABI specifications:

Release
Arm considers this specification to have enough implementations, which have received sufficient testing, to verify that it is correct. The details of these criteria are dependent on the scale and complexity of the change over previous versions: small, simple changes might only require one implementation, but more complex changes require multiple independent implementations, which have been rigorously tested for cross-compatibility. Arm anticipates that future changes to this specification will be limited to typographical corrections, clarifications and compatible extensions.
Beta
Arm considers this specification to be complete, but existing implementations do not meet the requirements for confidence in its release quality. Arm may need to make incompatible changes if issues emerge from its implementation.
Alpha
The content of this specification is a draft, and Arm considers the likelihood of future incompatible changes to be significant.

All content in this document is at the Release quality level.

2.1.2   Change history

If there is no entry in the change history table for a release, there are no changes to the content of the document for that release.

Issue Date Change
2.0 16 December 2016 Semihosting extensions incorporated and text updated
2019Q4 30 January 2020 In the Requirements for semihosting callers example, change _ to - in :semihosting-features.
2020Q4 21st December 2020
2023Q3 6st October 2023 Specify SYS_TIME return value as unsigned

2.2   Terms and abbreviations

The ABI for the Arm Architecture uses the following terms and abbreviations.

AAPCS
Procedure Call Standard for the Arm Architecture.
ABI

Application Binary Interface:

  1. The specifications to which an executable must conform in order to execute in a specific execution environment. For example, the Linux ABI for the Arm Architecture.
  2. A particular aspect of the specifications to which independently produced relocatable files must conform in order to be statically linkable and executable. For example, the AAELF32, RTABI32, ...
AEABI
(Embedded) ABI for the Arm architecture (this ABI...)
Arm-based
... based on the Arm architecture ...
core registers
The general purpose registers visible in the Arm architecture’s programmer’s model, typically r0-r12, SP, LR, PC, and CPSR.
EABI
An ABI suited to the needs of embedded, and deeply embedded (sometimes called free standing), applications.
Q-o-I
Quality of Implementation – a quality, behavior, functionality, or mechanism not required by this standard, but which might be provided by systems conforming to it. Q-o-I is often used to describe the toolchain-specific means by which a standard requirement is met.
VFP
The Arm architecture’s Floating Point architecture and instruction set. In this ABI, this abbreviation includes all floating point variants regardless of whether or not vector (V) mode is supported.

3   Introduction

Semihosting is a mechanism that enables code running on an ARM target or emulator to communicate with and use the Input/Output facilities on a host computer. The host must be running the emulator, or a debugger that is attached to the ARM target.

Examples of these facilities include keyboard input, screen output, and disk I/O. For example, you can use this mechanism to enable functions in the C library, such as printf() and scanf(), to use the screen and keyboard of the host instead of having a screen and keyboard on the target system.

This is useful because development hardware often does not have all the input and output facilities of the final system. Semihosting enables the host computer to provide these facilities.

Semihosting is implemented by a set of defined software instructions that generate exceptions from program control. The application invokes the appropriate semihosting call and the debug agent then handles the exception. The debug agent provides the required communication with the host.

The semihosting interface is common across all debug agents that are provided by ARM. Semihosted operations work when you are debugging applications on your development platform, as shown in the following figure:

In many cases, semihosting is invoked by code within library functions. The application can also invoke the semihosting operation directly.

Note

The instruction that is used to make semihosting calls can be SVC, HLT, or BKPT, depending on the processor. See The semihosting interface for more detail.

The following terms are used in the semihosting documentation:

Semihosting Implementation
An agent (for example, a debugger or emulator) that services semihosting operation requests from a Semihosting Caller executing on an ARM target.
Semihosting Caller
A program executing on an ARM target that sends requests to a Semihosting Implementation (for example, a debugger or emulator) to service semihosting operations.

3.1   Related information

4   The semihosting interface

Semihosting is supported for ARM A and R profiles using the A64, A32, and T32 instruction sets, and for M profile using the T32 instruction set.

Semihosting operations are requested using a trap instruction, which is a software instruction that generates exceptions from program control. Semihosting callers issue trap instructions, and the semihosting implementation then handles the resulting exception to perform the required semihosting operation. The trap instruction can be SVC, HLT, or BKPT, as indicated in the Semihosting Trap Instructions and Encodings table:

Semihosting Trap Instructions and Encodings
Profile Instruction Set Instruction Opcode
A+R Profile A64 HLT #0xF000 0xD45E0000
A32 SVC #0x123456 0xEF123456
HLT #0xF000 0xE10F0070
T32 SVC #0xAB 0xDFAB
HLT #0x3C 0xBABC
M--Profile T32 BKPT #0xAB 0xBEAB

For A32 and T32 on A+R Profile, semihosting can use either an SVC or an HLT trap instruction. Semihosting implementations must support both trap instructions across all versions of the ARM architecture.

Note

This requirement includes supporting the HLT encodings on ARMv7 and earlier processors, even though HLT is only defined as an instruction in ARMv8. This may require the semihosting implementation to trap the UNDEF exception.

The HLT encodings are new in version 2.0 of the semihosting specification. Where possible, have semihosting callers continue to use the previously existing trap instructions to ensure compatibility with legacy semihosting implementations. These trap instructions are HLT for A64, SVC on A+R profile A32 or T32, and BKPT on M profile. However, it is necessary to change from SVC to HLT instructions to support AArch32 semihosting properly in a mixed AArch32/AArch64 system.

Note

ARM encourages semihosting callers to implement support for trapping using HLT on A32 and T32 as a configurable option. ARM strongly discourages semihosting callers from mixing the HLT and SVC mechanisms within the same executable.

The OPERATION NUMBER REGISTER must contain the number of the semihosting operation to be performed. This number is given in parentheses after the operation name in the following sections. For example, SYS_OPEN (0x01).

Parameters are passed to the operation using the PARAMETER REGISTER. For most operations, the PARAMETER REGISTER must contain a pointer to a data block that holds the parameters. In some cases a single parameter is passed directly in the PARAMETER REGISTER, or no parameters are passed at all.

Results are returned in the RETURN REGISTER, either as an explicit return value or as a pointer to a data block. If no result is returned, assume that the RETURN REGISTER is corrupted. Some operations also return information in the PARAMETER REGISTER.

Multi-byte values in memory must be formatted as pure little-endian or pure big-endian to match the endianness mapping configuration of the processor.

The Registers and field size table shows the specific registers that are used, and the size of the fields in the data block, which depend on whether the caller is 32-bit or 64-bit.

Registers and field size
  32-bit 64-bit
OPERATION NUMBER REGISTER R0 W0
PARAMETER REGISTER R1 X1
RETURN REGISTER R0 X0
Data block field size 32 bits 64 bits

Note

The operation number is passed in W0 for the 64-bit ABI, which is the bottom 32 bits of the 64-bit register X0. Semihosting implementations must not assume that the top 32 bits of X0 are 0.

A few semihosting operations have other differences between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. These differences are described in the documentation of those operations.

The available semihosting operation numbers are allocated as follows:

0x00-0x31
Used by ARM.
0x32-0xFF
Reserved for future use by ARM.
0x100-0x1FF
Reserved for user applications. These semihosting operation numbers are not used by ARM. However if you are writing your own SVC operations, you are advised to use a different SVC number, rather than using the semihosted SVC number and these operation type numbers.
0x200-0xFFFFFFFF
Undefined and currently unused. ARM recommends that you do not use these semihosting operation numbers.

Note

Previous versions of the semihosting specification included the operation numbers 0x17 (angel_SWIreason_EnterSVC) and 0x19 (angelSWI_Reason_SyncCacheRange). These semihosting operation numbers are now reserved, and are not to be used or implemented.

4.1   Related information

5   Semihosting extensions

The semihosting API provides an extension mechanism. Semihosting implementations can provide optional functionality and advertise to the semihosting caller that they do so. Semihosting callers must check that the implementation supports the optional functionality before attempting to use it.

Each extension that the specification defines has an associated feature bit. If the implementation provides the extension, then it reports the feature bit as 1. Each extension definition identifies the feature bit by which feature byte it is in, and which bit within that byte. For example, feature byte 0, bit 3. Feature bytes and bits within them are both numbered starting from 0, with feature bit 0 being the least significant bit. Extensions are independent. Unless otherwise stated, support for one feature does not imply support for any other feature. The caller must check the feature bit for every feature it wants to use.

5.1   Semihosting feature bit reporting sequence format

Feature bits are reported using a sequence of bytes, which are accessed by using the SYS_OPEN (0x01) call with the special path name :semihosting-features. The byte sequence has the following format:

byte 0: SHFB_MAGIC_0 0x53
byte 1: SHFB_MAGIC_1 0x48
byte 2: SHFB_MAGIC_2 0x46
byte 3: SHFB_MAGIC_3 0x42
byte 4: feature byte 0
byte 5: feature byte 1
byte 6: feature byte 2
...

There is no limit to the number of bytes that can be returned. As future extensions are defined, new bytes will be added. If the read reaches the end of the file before the byte that contains a particular feature bit, then that feature bit must be taken to be 0.

Since the file is a sequence of bytes, the order remains the same whether the processor is big-endian or little-endian. The contents must be treated as a byte array, not an array of words or any other larger type.

5.2   Requirements for semihosting implementations

An implementation that implements any semihosting extensions must do the following:

  • Handle the special path name :semihosting-features in SYS_OPEN (0x01) when opened with mode 0 (r) or 1 (rb). Implement it to return a filehandle that behaves as if it were accessing a file containing a sequence of bytes in the format that is described in feature-bits. Attempts to open this special path name with any other opening mode must fail. The implementation must support opening of this special path name multiple times, both consecutively and simultaneously.

  • Support the following operations on the filehandle returned from SYS_OPEN (0x01) of :semihosting-features :

    SYS_FLEN (0x0C)

    Returns the length of the byte sequence, including the magic number bytes.

    SYS_ISTTY (0x09)

    Always returns 0.

    SYS_SEEK (0x0A)

    Permits random seeks to anywhere within the byte sequence.

    SYS_READ (0x06)

    Reads bytes from the sequence starting from the current seek position.

    SYS_CLOSE (0x02)

    Closes the filehandle.

The special path name does not correspond to a real file in a filesystem, and so no special case handling of it is expected for SYS_REMOVE (0x0E) or SYS_RENAME (0x0F).

5.3   Requirements for semihosting callers

To read the feature bits, the semihosting caller must:

  1. Call SYS_OPEN (0x01) with the special filename :semihosting-features and the file opening mode 0 (r). If the SYS_OPEN (0x01) fails, then no extensions are supported, so all feature bits should be assumed to be 0.
  2. Use the SYS_READ (0x06) call to read bytes from the filehandle returned by step 1. If the read returns fewer than 5 bytes, or the first 4 bytes are not the correct magic numbers, then no extensions are supported.
The caller must check all the magic bytes, but can optionally use SYS_SEEK (0x0A) to seek forwards in the byte sequence to the subsequent byte, or bytes, of interest. Seeking off the end of the file is undefined, so a caller wanting to use SYS_SEEK (0x0A) must first use SYS_FLEN (0x0C) to determine the size of the byte sequence.
  1. If the SYS_OPEN (0x01) from step 1 did not fail, the caller must now use SYS_CLOSE (0x02) to close the filehandle.

It is important to follow this sequence to ensure correct behavior on legacy semihosting implementations, which do not recognize the special filename :semihosting-features.

5.4   Example pseudocode function for querying feature bits

The following C-like pseudocode describes one possible simple implementation of a check for a specific feature bit:

#define MAGICLEN 4
bool sh_feature_supported(int bytenum, int bitnum)
{
    unsigned char magic[MAGICLEN];
    unsigned char c;
    int fh;
    int len;

    fh = sys_open(":semihosting-features", 0);
    if (fh == -1) {
        return false;
    }
    len = sys_flen(fh);
    if (len <= bytenum) {
        sys_close(fh);
        return false;
    }
    if (sys_read(fh, &magic, MAGICLEN) != 0) {
        sys_close(fh);
        return false;
    }
    if (magic[0] != SHFB_MAGIC_0 ||
        magic[1] != SHFB_MAGIC_1 ||
        magic[2] != SHFB_MAGIC_2 ||
        magic[3] != SHFB_MAGIC_3) {
        sys_close(fh);
        return false;
    }
    if (sys_seek(fh, bytenum) != 0) {
        sys_close(fh);
        return false;
    }
    if (sys_read(fh, &c, 1) != 0) {
        sys_close(fh);
        return false;
    }
    sys_close(fh);
    return (c & (1 << bitnum)) != 0;
}

More sophisticated implementations can choose to cache the contents of the start of the file with the magic bytes and the first few bytes of feature bit data. Conversely if, for instance, the caller knows in advance that it is only interested in feature bits inside the first feature byte, it can simplify this method to perform a single 5 byte read and need not call SYS_FLEN (0x0C) or SYS_SEEK (0x0A).

5.5   Semihosting extensions available

The Semihosting Extensions Table lists the semihosting extensions currently available, along with their associated feature byte and bit.

Semihosting Extensions
Name Feature byte Feature bit
SH_EXT_EXIT_EXTENDED 0 0
SH_EXT_STDOUT_STDERR 0 1

6   Semihosting operations

The following semihosting operations are available:

6.1   SYS_CLOCK (0x10)

Returns the number of centiseconds (hundredths of a second) since the execution started.

Values returned can be of limited use for some benchmarking purposes because of communication overhead or other agent-specific factors. For example, with a debug hardware unit the request is passed back to the host for execution. This can lead to unpredictable delays in transmission and process scheduling.

Use this function to calculate time intervals, by calculating differences between intervals with and without the code sequence to be timed.

6.1.1   Entry

The PARAMETER REGISTER must contain 0. There are no other parameters.

6.1.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • The number of centiseconds since some arbitrary start point, if the call is successful.
  • –1 if the call is not successful. For example, because of a communications error.

Related information

6.2   SYS_CLOSE (0x02)

Closes a file on the host system. The handle must reference a file that was opened with SYS_OPEN (0x01).

6.2.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a one-field argument block:

field 1
Contains a handle for an open file.

6.2.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • 0 if the call is successful
  • –1 if the call is not successful.

Related information

6.3   SYS_ELAPSED (0x30)

Returns the number of elapsed target ticks since execution started.

Use SYS_TICKFREQ (0x31) to determine the tick frequency.

6.3.1   Entry (32-bit)

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER points to a two-field data block to be used for returning the number of elapsed ticks:

field 1
The least significant field and is at the low address.
field 2
The most significant field and is at the high address.

6.3.2   Entry (64-bit)

On entry the PARAMETER REGISTER points to a one-field data block to be used for returning the number of elapsed ticks:

field 1
The number of elapsed ticks as a 64-bit value.

6.3.3   Return

On exit:

  • On success, the RETURN REGISTER contains 0, the PARAMETER REGISTER is unchanged, and the data block pointed to by the PARAMETER REGISTER is filled in with the number of elapsed ticks.
  • On failure, the RETURN REGISTER contains -1, and the PARAMETER REGISTER contains -1.

Note

Some semihosting implementations might not support this semihosting operation, and they always return -1 in the RETURN REGISTER.

Related information

6.4   SYS_ERRNO (0x13)

Returns the value of the C library errno variable that is associated with the semihosting implementation.

The errno variable can be set by a number of C library semihosted functions, including:

Whether errno is set or not, and to what value, is entirely host-specific, except where the ISO C standard defines the behavior.

6.4.1   Entry

There are no parameters. The PARAMETER REGISTER must be 0.

6.4.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains the value of the C library errno variable.

Related information

6.5   SYS_EXIT (0x18)

Note

SYS_EXIT (0x18) was called angel_SWIreason_ReportException in previous versions of the documentation.

An application calls this operation to report an exception to the debugger directly. The most common use is to report that execution has completed, using ADP_Stopped_ApplicationExit.

Note

This semihosting operation provides no means for 32-bit callers to indicate an application exit with a specified exit code. Semihosting callers may prefer to check for the presence of the SH_EXT_EXIT_EXTENDED extension and use the SYS_EXIT_EXTENDED (0x20) operation instead, if it is available.

6.5.1   Entry (32-bit)

On entry, the PARAMETER register is set to a reason code describing the cause of the trap. Not all semihosting client implementations will necessarily trap every corresponding event. These reason codes are defined in the following tables.

The following table shows reason codes relating to hardware exceptions. Exception handlers can use these operations to report an exception that has not been handled:

Hardware vector reason codes
Name Hexadecimal value
ADP_Stopped_BranchThroughZero 0x20000
ADP_Stopped_UndefinedInstr 0x20001
ADP_Stopped_SoftwareInterrupt 0x20002
ADP_Stopped_PrefetchAbort 0x20003
ADP_Stopped_DataAbort 0x20004
ADP_Stopped_AddressException 0x20005
ADP_Stopped_IRQ 0x20006
ADP_Stopped_FIQ 0x20007

The following table shows reason codes relating to software events:

Software reason codes
Name Hexadecimal value
ADP_Stopped_BreakPoint 0x20020
ADP_Stopped_WatchPoint 0x20021
ADP_Stopped_StepComplete 0x20022
ADP_Stopped_RunTimeErrorUnknown 0x20023
ADP_Stopped_InternalError 0x20024
ADP_Stopped_UserInterruption 0x20025
ADP_Stopped_ApplicationExit 0x20026
ADP_Stopped_StackOverflow 0x20027
ADP_Stopped_DivisionByZero 0x20028
ADP_Stopped_OSSpecific 0x20029

6.5.2   Entry (64-bit)

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a two-field argument block:

field 1
The exception type, which is one of the set of reason codes in the above tables.
field 2
A subcode, whose meaning depends on the reason code in field 1.

In particular, if field 1 is ADP_Stopped_ApplicationExit then field 2 is an exit status code, as passed to the C standard library exit() function. A simulator receiving this request must notify a connected debugger, if present, and then exit with the specified status.

6.5.3   Return

No return is expected from these calls. However, it is possible for the debugger to request that the application continues by performing an RDI_Execute request or equivalent. In this case, execution continues with the registers as they were on entry to the operation, or as subsequently modified by the debugger.

Related information

6.6   SYS_EXIT_EXTENDED (0x20)

This operation is only supported if the semihosting extension SH_EXT_EXIT_EXTENDED is implemented.

SH_EXT_EXIT_EXTENDED is reported using feature byte 0, bit 0. If this extension is supported, then the implementation provides a means to report a normal exit with a nonzero exit status in both 32-bit and 64-bit semihosting APIs.

The implementation must provide the semihosting call SYS_EXIT_EXTENDED (0x20) for both A64 and A32/T32 semihosting APIs.

SYS_EXIT_EXTENDED (0x20) is used by an application to report an exception or exit to the debugger directly. The most common use is to report that execution has completed, using ADP_Stopped_ApplicationExit.

6.6.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a two-field argument block:

field 1
The exception type, which should be one of the set of reason codes that are documented for the SYS_EXIT (0x18) call. For example, ADP_Stopped_ApplicationExit or ADP_Stopped_InternalError.
field 2
A subcode, whose meaning depends on the reason code in field 1. In particular, if field 1 is ADP_Stopped_ApplicationExit then field 2 is an exit status code, as passed to the C standard library exit() function. A simulator receiving this request must notify a connected debugger, if present, and then exit with the specified status.

6.6.2   Return

No return is expected from these calls.

Note

For the A64 API, this call is identical to the behavior of the mandatory SYS_EXIT (0x18) call. If this extension is supported, then both calls must be implemented.

Related information

6.7   SYS_FLEN (0x0C)

Returns the length of a specified file.

6.7.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a one-field argument block:

field 1
A handle for a previously opened, seekable file object.

6.7.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • The current length of the file object, if the call is successful.
  • –1 if an error occurs.

6.8   SYS_GET_CMDLINE (0x15)

Returns the command line that is used for the call to the executable, that is, argc and argv.

6.8.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER points to a two-field data block to be used for returning the command string and its length:

field 1
A pointer to a buffer of at least the size that is specified in field 2.
field 2
The length of the buffer in bytes.

6.8.2   Return

On exit:

If the call is successful, then the RETURN REGISTER contains 0, the PARAMETER REGISTER is unchanged, and the data block is updated as follows:

field 1
A pointer to a null-terminated string of the command line.
field 2
The length of the string in bytes.

If the call is not successful, then the RETURN REGISTER contains -1.

Note

The semihosting implementation might impose limits on the maximum length of the string that can be transferred. However, the implementation must be able to support a command-line length of at least 80 bytes.

6.9   SYS_HEAPINFO (0x16)

Returns the system stack and heap parameters.

6.9.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains the address of a pointer to a four-field data block. The contents of the data block are filled by the function. The following C-like pseudocode describes the layout of the block:

struct block {
    void* heap_base;
    void* heap_limit;
    void* stack_base;
    void* stack_limit;
};

6.9.2   Return

On exit, the PARAMETER REGISTER is unchanged and the data block has been updated.

6.10   SYS_ISERROR (0x08)

Determines whether the return code from another semihosting call is an error status or not.

This call is passed a parameter block containing the error code to examine.

6.10.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a one-field data block:

field 1
The required status word to check.

6.10.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • 0 if the status field is not an error indication
  • A nonzero value if the status field is an error indication.

6.11   SYS_ISTTY (0x09)

Checks whether a file is connected to an interactive device.

6.11.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a one-field argument block:

field 1
A handle for a previously opened file object.

6.11.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • 1 if the handle identifies an interactive device.
  • 0 if the handle identifies a file.
  • A value other than 1 or 0 if an error occurs.

6.12   SYS_OPEN (0x01)

Opens a file on the host system.

The file path is specified either as relative to the current directory of the host process, or absolute, using the path conventions of the host operating system.

Semihosting implementations must support opening the special path name :semihosting-features as part of the semihosting extensions reporting mechanism. See Semihosting extensions for details.

ARM targets interpret the special path name :tt as meaning the console input stream, for an open-read or the console output stream, for an open-write. Opening these streams is performed as part of the standard startup code for those applications that reference the C stdio streams.

The semihosting extension SH_EXT_STDOUT_STDERR allows the semihosting caller to open separate output streams corresponding to stdout and stderr. This extension is reported using feature byte 0, bit 1. Use SYS_OPEN (0x01) with the special path name :semihosting-features to access the feature bits. See Semihosting extensions for details.

If this extension is supported, the implementation must support the following additional semantics to SYS_OPEN (0x01):

  • If the special path name :tt is opened with an fopen mode requesting write access (w, wb, w+, or w+b), then this is a request to open stdout.
  • If the special path name :tt is opened with a mode requesting append access (a, ab, a+, or a+b), then this is a request to open stderr.

6.12.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a three-field argument block:

field 1
A pointer to a null-terminated string containing a file or device name.
field 2
An integer that specifies the file opening mode. The Value of mode table gives the valid values for the integer, and their corresponding ISO C fopen() mode.
field 3

An integer that gives the length of the string pointed to by field 1.

The length does not include the terminating null character that must be present.

Value of mode
Mode 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
ISO C fopen mode (Note 1) r rb r+ r+b w wb w+ w+b a ab a+ a+b

Note

  1. The non-ANSI option t is not supported.

6.12.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • A nonzero handle if the call is successful.
  • –1 if the call is not successful.

6.13   SYS_READ (0x06)

Reads the contents of a file into a buffer.

The file position is specified either:

The file position is at the start of the file when it is opened, and is lost when the file is closed. Perform the file operation as a single action whenever possible. For example, do not split a read of 16KB into four 4KB chunks unless there is no alternative.

6.13.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a three-field data block:

field 1
Contains a handle for a file previously opened with SYS_OPEN (0x01).
field 2
Points to a buffer.
field 3
Contains the number of bytes to read to the buffer from the file.

6.13.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains the number of bytes not filled in the buffer (buffer_length - bytes_read) as follows:

  • If the RETURN REGISTER is 0, the entire buffer was successfully filled.
  • If the RETURN REGISTER is the same as field 3, no bytes were read (EOF can be assumed).
  • If the RETURN REGISTER contains a value smaller than field 3, the read succeeded but the buffer was only partly filled. For interactive devices, this is the most common return value.

Related information

6.14   SYS_READC (0x07)

Reads a byte from the console.

6.14.1   Entry

The PARAMETER REGISTER must contain 0. There are no other parameters or values possible.

6.14.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains the byte read from the console.

Related information

6.15   SYS_REMOVE (0x0E)

Deletes a specified file on the host filing system.

6.15.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a two-field argument block:

field 1
Points to a null-terminated string that gives the path name of the file to be deleted.
field 2
The length of the string.

6.15.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • 0 if the delete is successful
  • A nonzero, host-specific error code if the delete fails.

6.16   SYS_RENAME (0x0F)

Renames a specified file.

6.16.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a four-field data block:

field 1
A pointer to the name of the old file.
field 2
The length of the old filename.
field 3
A pointer to the new filename.
field 4
The length of the new filename.

Both strings are null-terminated.

6.16.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • 0 if the rename is successful.
  • A nonzero, host-specific error code if the rename fails.

6.17   SYS_SEEK (0x0A)

Seeks to a specified position in a file using an offset specified from the start of the file.

The file is assumed to be a byte array and the offset is given in bytes.

6.17.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a two-field data block:

field 1
A handle for a seekable file object.
field 2
The absolute byte position to seek to.

6.17.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • 0 if the request is successful.
  • A negative value if the request is not successful. Use SYS_ERRNO (0x13) to read the value of the host errno variable describing the error.

Note

The effect of seeking outside the current extent of the file object is undefined.

Related information

6.18   SYS_SYSTEM (0x12)

Passes a command to the host command-line interpreter.

This enables you to execute a system command such as dir, ls, or pwd. The terminal I/O is on the host, and is not visible to the target.

Caution!

The command that is passed to the host is executed on the host. Ensure that any command passed has no unintended consequences.

6.18.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a two-field argument block:

field 1
Points to a string to be passed to the host command-line interpreter.
field 2
The length of the string.

6.18.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains the return status.

6.19   SYS_TICKFREQ (0x31)

Returns the tick frequency.

6.19.1   Entry

The PARAMETER REGISTER must contain 0 on entry to this routine.

6.19.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains either:

  • The number of ticks per second.
  • –1 if the target does not know the value of one tick.

Note

Some semihosting implementations might not support this semihosting operation, and they always return -1 in the RETURN REGISTER.

6.20   SYS_TIME (0x11)

Returns the number of seconds since 00:00 January 1, 1970.

This value is real-world time, regardless of any debug agent configuration.

The returned value should be interpreted as unsigned. There is no representation for times before 1970. On 32-bit implementations, this allows times after the year 2038 to be represented, by using values greater than 0x80000000.

6.20.1   Entry

There are no parameters.

6.20.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains the number of seconds.

6.21   SYS_TMPNAM (0x0D)

Returns a temporary name for a file identified by a system file identifier.

6.21.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a three-word argument block:

field 1
A pointer to a buffer.
field 2
A target identifier for this filename. Its value must be an integer in the range 0-255.
field 3
Contains the length of the buffer. The length must be at least the value of L_tmpnam on the host system.

6.21.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • 0 if the call is successful.
  • –1 if an error occurs.

The buffer pointed to by the PARAMETER REGISTER contains the filename, prefixed with a suitable directory name.

If you use the same target identifier again, the same filename is returned.

Note

The returned string must be null-terminated.

6.22   SYS_WRITE (0x05)

Writes the contents of a buffer to a specified file at the current file position.

The file position is specified either:

The file position is at the start of the file when the file is opened, and is lost when the file is closed.

Perform the file operation as a single action whenever possible. For example, do not split a write of 16KB into four 4KB chunks unless there is no alternative.

6.22.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to a three-field data block:

field 1
Contains a handle for a file previously opened with SYS_OPEN (0x01).
field 2
Points to the memory containing the data to be written.
field 3
Contains the number of bytes to be written from the buffer to the file.

6.22.2   Return

On exit, the RETURN REGISTER contains:

  • 0 if the call is successful.
  • The number of bytes that are not written, if there is an error.

Related information

6.23   SYS_WRITEC (0x03)

Writes a character byte, pointed to by the PARAMETER REGISTER, to the debug channel.

When executed under an ARM debugger, the character appears on the host debugger console.

6.23.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to the character.

6.23.2   Return

None. The RETURN REGISTER is corrupted.

Related information

6.24   SYS_WRITE0 (0x04)

Writes a null-terminated string to the debug channel.

When executed under an ARM debugger, the characters appear on the host debugger console.

6.24.1   Entry

On entry, the PARAMETER REGISTER contains a pointer to the first byte of the string.

6.24.2   Return

None. The RETURN REGISTER is corrupted.

Related information