Tracer List for Automatically Controlling Tracer Behavior

• US 20140317454A1
• Filed: 06/12/2013
• Published: 10/23/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/20/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Concurix Corporation
• Inventors: Gataullin, Renat, Gounares, Alexander G., Fraser, Christopher W.
• Granted Patent: US 9,021,445 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/45
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3003 Monitoring arrangements specially adapted to the computing system or computing system component being monitored
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3093 Configuration details thereof, e.g. installation, enabling, spatial arrangement of the probes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3096 wherein the means or processing minimize the use of computing system or of computing system component resources, e.g. non-intrusive monitoring which minimizes the probe effect: sniffing, intercepting, indirectly deriving the monitored data from other directly available data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/323 Visualisation of programs or trace data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3636 by tracing the execution of the program
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software

Abstract

A tracing system may use an evaluation mechanism to determine which functions to include or exclude during tracing. The architecture may evaluate functions when functions or groups of functions may be loaded for execution, as well as each time a function may be encountered. The evaluation mechanism may use whitelists, blacklists, and various expressions to identify which functions to trace and which functions to exclude. The evaluation mechanism may evaluate an expression that may identify specific conditions under which a function may be traced or not traced. The tracing mechanism may create wrapping functions for each function, including callback functions.

Claims

1. A method performed by at least one computer processor, said method comprising:

receiving an application, said application comprising a plurality of functions;

identifying a first function from said application;

evaluating a tracing list to determine whether said first function is to be traced;

when said first function is to be traced, causing said first function to be executed with tracing;

when said first function is not to be traced, causing said first function to be executed without tracing.

2. The method of claim 1, said first function being identified during execution of said application.

3. The method of claim 2:

receiving a first instance of said first function and determining that said first instance of said first function is to be traced; and

receiving a second instance of said first function and determining that said second instance of said first function is not to be traced.

4. The method of claim 3, said list being updated after beginning execution of said application.

5. The method of claim 1, said first function being identified when said first function is loaded into memory for execution.

6. The method of claim 1, said first function being identified prior to execution.

7. The method of claim 6, said first function being identified prior to execution of said first function and after beginning execution of said application.

8. The method of claim 6, said tracing comprising instrumenting said first function prior to execution.

9. The method of claim 8, said instrumenting occurring during compilation.

10. The method of claim 9, said compiling being a just in time compiling performed at runtime.

11. The method of claim 1, said list comprising a white list, said white list comprising functions to trace.

12. The method of claim 1, said list comprising a black list, said black list comprising functions not to trace.

13. The method of claim 12, said list further comprising a white list, said while list comprising functions to trace.

14. The method of claim 1, said first function being a member of a module, said module being identified in said list.

15. The method of claim 1, said first function being a member of a file, said file being identified in said list.

16. The method of claim 1, said list being defined by a user.

17. The method of claim 1, said list being updated after beginning execution of said application.

18. A system comprising:

at least one processor;

an execution environment operating on said at least one processor, said execution environment that executes an application comprising a plurality of functions;

a tracer operating within said execution environment, said tracer that;

identifies a first function from said application;

evaluates a tracing list to determine whether said first function is to be traced;

when said first function is to be traced, causes said first function to be executed with tracing;

when said first function is not to be traced, causes said first function to be executed without tracing.

19. The system of claim 18, said first function being identified during execution of said application.

20. The system of claim 19, said tracer that further:

receives a first instance of said first function and determining that said first instance of said first function is to be traced; and

receives a second instance of said first function and determining that said second instance of said first function is not to be traced.