Monitor commands not working properly from command line "-moncommands"...

Hi

I have been wanting to make a unit test suite of my c64 library code, and was thinking of using the awesome vice monitor for that.

Using the commandline, vice accepts a monitor-command script using the "-moncommand" switch, which seems perfect for this.

The problem is that some of the commands are not working properly. Some even crash vice. But they almost seem to work.

I realize that the manual states that some commands might not work properly from scripts, but there are a few quite central commands (for my use case at least) that does not work, so i am hoping this could be looked into. :)

To put this into context, this is what i am trying to do: (This section can be skipped)

My "test suite runner" code (made in some programming or batch language) should launch VICE with the prg to test and a monitor script. The purpose of the script is to get data out of vice (the "test result" values).

The monitor-script waits for certain condition (using the "until" command for example), then dumps the memory the c64 code has written its result to into a file (or dumps the current rasterline and cycle or both) - sometimes this is only 1 byte, sometimes much more.

The "test suite runner" code now checks if the bytes in the file written by VICE (the actual result) corresponds to what the bytes should be (the expected result).

(To avoid having to start/stop vice for each test, to decrease the time it takes running the tests, the monitor script should probably load and run the prg itself instead of autostarting the prg - and it should be a single monitor-script for all tests).

.

Examples:

Let me give some examples.

In the examples below i just want to run a prg containing this c64 code:

            .pc = $1000

            ldx #0
    loop:   txa
            sta $0400,x
            inx
            bne loop
            jmp stop

            .pc = $2000
    stop:   jmp *   // <- when the cpu goes here, the monitor-script will proceed and save $0400-$0500 to a file (that memory contains the "result")

and dump the memory $0400-$04FF to a file after it has run (when it reaches the "stop" address). That is what i'm trying to do and this is what i can't get working.

.

Example 1

This is an example where i specify the prg file to load on the commandline:

The monitor script:

until 2000
bsave "output" 0 0400 04ff
quit

ran by the command

x64.exe -moncommands "vice-monitor-input.txt" -logfile "vicelog.txt" -autostartprgmode 1 -keybuf "sys 4096\n" input.prg

Result:

The output file "output" contains all zeroes, instead of 0,1,2,...,255.
(i.e. "until" and "quit" works, but "bsave" does not save the correct data)

.

Example 2

This is an example where i specify the prg file to load in the monitor-script itself (probably the superior approach):

The monitor script:

until e5cf
load "input.prg" 0
g 1000
until 2000
bsave "output" 0 0400 04ff
quit

ran by the command

x64.exe -moncommands "vice-monitor-input.txt" -logfile "vicelog.txt"

Result:

Vice crashes with the message "An unexpected error occurred. Received signal 11 ()." (see attached screenshot)
It seems to be the "load" command causing this. The "g" command seems to be ignored...
In fact, it seems like the initial "until" command is ignored in this case, because the error message appears instantly, it does not wait for whatever address is written after "until" (which is a bit strange, because the "until" seemed to work in the previous example - it probably has something to do with "load"..?).

.

Example 3

If we forget about testing and just run some random commands, this works:

d 0800

But this crashes vice:

m 0800

and so does this:

> 0400 01 02 03 04 05

(both of these crashes show the same "An unexpected error occurred. Received signal 11 ()." as above)

.

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Hope you guys will find the time and motivation to fix this. I know you're doing this amazing work in your spare time, so i'm of course not expecting anything. It would however be nice if you could give me a indication if you think this will be done, or if i should start looking for other ways to test. :)

Let me know if you need more info from me. (Or if you know of a better way of testing c64 code)

Thank you guys for the great emulator!

VICE version used (I did try with a few others too): WinVICE-2.4.32-x86-r32264

P.S. Also attached vice logs of the crash of "example 2" and of a normal run - note that the "video_dx9" error also happens on normal runs.