bug in PUTSP trap implementation?

[pro465]

in

lc3-vm/docs/index.html

Lines 929 to 944 in e854c34

	<pre class="prettyprint"><code class="">{
	/* one char per byte (two bytes per word)
	here we need to swap back to
	big endian format */
	uint16_t* c = memory + reg[R_R0];
	while (*c)
	{
	char char1 = (*c) &amp; 0xFF;
	putc(char1, stdout);
	char char2 = (*c) &gt;&gt; 8;
	if (char2) putc(char2, stdout);
	++c;
	}
	fflush(stdout);
	}
	</code></pre>

it seems that the trap only stops printing when it encounters a 0x0000. however, the specification says that:

A character string consisting of an odd
number of characters to be written will have x00 in bits [15:8] of the memory
location containing the last character to be written.

in my interpretation, it sounds like the trap should stop when it has encountered a 0x0000, or it should print the first byte, and if the second byte is 0x00, it should stop, otherwise it should print it too. but this does not align with your implementation. i wonder whether it is a bug or my interpretation is wrong?

[rpendleton]

I believe the double null is actually expected. The sentence immediately after the portion of the spec that you quoted mentions the double null:

Writing terminates with the occurrence of x0000 in a memory location.

With that said though, it looks like there's an inconsistency between the opcode appendix and the official open source implementation of the LC3 trap implementations. Here's a comment from the beginning of the PUTSP implementation from lc3os.asm:

TRAP_PUTSP
	; NOTE: This trap will end when it sees any NUL, even in
	; packed form, despite the P&P second edition's requirement
	; of a double NUL.

So although the specification requires a double null, it seems the official open source implementation intentionally ignores that requirement...

I'm not sure what the best answer is here.

[justinmeiners]

@rpendleton perhaps we should check the latest addition of the textbook on this subject.

[justinmeiners]

Confirmed that double NUL is still the specified behaviour. @pro465 do you have an application this breaks? Or, just bringing it for correctness/consistency sake?

[pro465]

@justinmeiners well i was just implementing the LC-3 in Rust and was confused. so i would say i was bringing it up for consistency/correctness.

[justinmeiners]

@pro465 I talked with @rpendleton about it. We agree it's weird, but I don't see a great reason to not follow the spec here. Perhaps something else in the lc3 ecosystem will inform us.

Either way, we have been getting several questions about detailed standards topics. I think it would be a good idea to start a markdown document that records these decisions.

[pro465]

since, it seems there are widely different implementations and interpretations, i did not implement the traps and stuff, instead i left them to the OS and instead made an OS-agnostic VM:
https://github.com/pro465/lc3

[pro465]

Either way, we have been getting several questions about detailed standards topics. I think it would be a good idea to start a markdown document that records these decisions.

yeah i'd agree to that: to get some sort of FAQ section in the README that answers what kind of design decisions the maintainers took.