Method and system for tracing and displaying execution of nested functions

• US 20030159133A1
• Filed: 09/05/2002
• Published: 08/21/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Pichetti, Luigi, Gangemi, Rosario, Ferri, Luca
• Granted Patent: US 7,120,901 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/130
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3636 by tracing the execution of the program

Abstract

A method and system for tracing the failing or successful execution of nested functions coded with return codes in a thread during its execution. The method and system further allow accessing the thread execution information in the trace file and visualizing the tree structure of the nested functions and the result of the execution for each of them.

The method comprises an ENTRY and EXIT trace macro to mark the beginning and the end of execution of the function, a TRACE macro to record messages and program variable values and a QUIT macro marking the failing execution of the corresponding function. Using a Graphical User Interface, an interactive trace analyzer reads the trace file and display the tree structure of the nested functions and marks by using different colors the success of failure of each of them. The trace analyzer utilities helps the user to quickly identify the error in the source code corresponding to a function with a failing execution.

Claims

1. A method for identifying errors in the source code stored on a computer of program components comprising nested functions which may use return codes and executed in a multithread environment, said method comprising the steps of:

using an editor operating on the computer, adding in the source code of said components at least the following macros;

an ENTRY macro at the beginning of each function, an EXIT macro at the normal execution end of each function, a TRACE macro wherever a specific information needs to be dumped and a QUIT macro in the code in the place where an unexpected condition occurs;

compiling source code into executable code using the code source compiler on the computer;

executing said executable code on the computer including trace macro code, each time an ENTRY or EXIT macro being executed, logging a trace record in a trace file comprising the name of the corresponding function, each time a TRACE macro being executed, logging a trace record in the trace file comprising the dumped specific information, and, each time a QUIT macro being executed, logging a trace record in the trace file comprising the name of the corresponding function and jumping to the execution of the EXIT macro of said corresponding function.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the following steps executed on a computer accessing the trace file and after a command has been entered at the computer requesting the analyze of the trace file:

reading a trace record in the trace file;

if the trace record has been created by the execution of an ENTRY macro, displaying on a screen of the computer the function name as a representation of a node, becoming the current node, of a tree illustrating the structure of the components comprising nested functions;

if the trace record has been created by the execution of a QUIT macro, marking on the screen the current node as a failing function, the parent tree node becoming the current node;

if the trace macro has been created by the execution of an EXIT macro, marking the current node on the screen as a successfully executed function, the parent tree node becoming the current node;

if the trace macro has not been created by the execution of an EXIT macro, storing in the memory of the computer, the corresponding dumped specific information of the TRACE macro as a leaf of the current node;

repetitively executing the previous steps up to the end of the trace file.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising the following steps upon a corresponding expand or collapse command has been optionally entered at the computer:

expanding all the child tree nodes of a tree node by displaying on the screen the list of nested functions executed in a given function;

collapsing all the child tree nodes of a tree node by suppressing on screen the list of nested functions executed in a given function.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the corresponding command is a simple mouse click on the tree node representation on the screen.

5. The method of anyone of claims 2 to 4 further comprising the step of displaying, upon entry of a command on the computer designating a specific node, all the leafs stored for this node.

6. The method of anyone of claims 2 to 5 further comprising, upon entry of a command on the computer designating a specific node, the steps of:

P1 reading the function name of the specific tree node in the ENTRY macro trace record;

accessing the corresponding source code in the program component source code;

displaying said source code on the screen.

7. The method of anyone of claim 1 to 6 wherein the specific dumped information of a TRACE macro comprises character strings or variable values including function return code value when there is one.

8. The method of anyone of claims 1 to 7 where the trace logging is activated as a separate request for executing the executable code of the components.

9. The method of claim 8 where a level of trace is associated when coding each TRACE macro and when a level is specified at trace logging activation, only the TRACE macro execution having a level less or equal to the level specified at trace logging will generate trace logging in the trace file.

10. The method of anyone of claims 1 to 9 wherein the trace record at least comprises an identifier of the component being executed, a time stamp, the name of the function and the trace text identifying an EXIT or ENTRY or QUIT macro or being a TRACE macro text.

11. The method of anyone of claims 1 to 10 comprising the following step after trace logging and before requesting analyzing of the trace file:

upon request entered on the computer, sorting or grouping or filtering the trace records by component, process or thread.

12. The method of anyone of claims 1 to 11 wherein marking a node on the screen as a successfully executed function is done by coloring the representation of the node in green and wherein marking on the screen a node as a failing function is done by coloring the representation of the node in red.

13. A computer program product comprising programming code instructions for executing the steps of the method according to any of the claims 1 to 12 when said program is executed on a computer.

14. A system comprising a computer having an operating system enabling execution of window based applications, and executing a program product comprising programming code instructions executing the steps of the method according to any of the claims 1 to 12.