Can I enable debugging mid-simulation?

[joshualmashburn]

Hello! I am working with Simpoint checkpoints I created. I am still new to the standard library, so I am basing my approach off of https://github.com/gem5/gem5/blob/stable/configs/example/gem5_library/checkpoints/simpoints-se-restore.py

I have added a custom debug flag, as I am trying to grab instruction operands and opcodes as they are sent to a certain execution unit (RISCV ISA). I have all that working easily, however, I do not want the warmup instructions included in the trace. The way I envision this is to enable debugging when the script schedules the actual Simpoint interval's instructions, such as on line 144 of simpoints-se-restore.py.

I tried m5.debug.flags['CustomFlag'] = True, but I get the error TypeError: 'AllFlags' object does not support item assignment. Is there a canonical way to do this? I know the --debug-time argument exists, but the checkpoint generated is named after the tick at the start of the warmup, not the start of the Simpoint interval, and I have many of these to do, so I'd like to avoid manual intervention. Thanks!

[joshualmashburn]

I dug around in the m5 source code and found the code where the debug flags are parsed from the command line.
I tried m5.debug.flags['CustomFlag'].enable() and it works! I'm unsure if that's the proper way to do it, but if there's a better way, I'm curious to know.

[powerjg]

This is the right way!