software instruction cache

So I was posting on the parallella forums and had an idea for something to investigate in the future.

Basically have the ezesdk loader create an automatic software code cache based on sections.

The thinking is this:

• The relocatable elf files contain RELOC hunks for all function calls outside of the current section (and inside if they are not compiled with -mshort-calls);
• These need to be resolved by the loader anyway;
• The loader could point these anywhere - including to a global relocation table which included loader-generated entries;
• The global relocation table could call a stub which loads the code anywhere in memory because the code is now relocatable (since every function call goes via the stubs).

Well, it's a little more complex than that because return addresses from the stack also need to make sure they track the current location of the caller and if it needs to be re-loaded into the cache. Still off the top of my head, ... this may be possible. For example each stub could track the current callee module in a separate return stack which can be updated should any section be unloaded or relocated. Interrupts would need special handling.

Idea needs to stew.

I haven't had the energy to do much but a 0.0 release of 'ezesdk' isn't too far off. I did the license headers, updated the readme from elf-loader, and tweaked the makefiles a few times. Still playing with some of the apis too.