System and method for software error early detection and data capture
First Claim
1. A method of detecting and diagnosing software errors in a computer software program executing on a computer processor system comprising the steps of:
- defining the internal structure of the computer software program and recording said internal structure in at least one predefined table in a disk file;
placing error detection points within said computer software program which are activated individually by the occurrence of a software error to signal when diagnostic data is to be collected;
responsive to the receipt of a signal to collect diagnostic data generated by an activated error detection point, transferring control of said computer software program to a data collection and reporting routine;
collecting and storing diagnostic data based on a first set of keyword-value pairs passed by the activated error detection point on a macro call to said data collection and reporting routine, and the computer software program internal structure contained in said predefined table;
generating a unique software symptom string under control of the data collection and reporting routine; and
recording said software symptom string in a software program error log.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A process for detecting software errors in a computer program and automatically gathering diagnostic data limited to the error to be resolved. Error detection code is placed within the software program during program development. When an error or failure is detected, this process is called and captures only the data required to debug the software error. The error detection code notifies the process of which data to capture by selecting entries from a table within the process. This table, known as an Application Data Table (ADT), contains the layout and format of all data areas used by the calling problem program and information required to build a generic alert and send the generic alert to a computer network monitor program. This process is only called conditionally when an error is detected. It is completely idle until such a condition occurs.
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Citations
15 Claims
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1. A method of detecting and diagnosing software errors in a computer software program executing on a computer processor system comprising the steps of:
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defining the internal structure of the computer software program and recording said internal structure in at least one predefined table in a disk file; placing error detection points within said computer software program which are activated individually by the occurrence of a software error to signal when diagnostic data is to be collected; responsive to the receipt of a signal to collect diagnostic data generated by an activated error detection point, transferring control of said computer software program to a data collection and reporting routine; collecting and storing diagnostic data based on a first set of keyword-value pairs passed by the activated error detection point on a macro call to said data collection and reporting routine, and the computer software program internal structure contained in said predefined table; generating a unique software symptom string under control of the data collection and reporting routine; and recording said software symptom string in a software program error log. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A system for detecting and diagnosing software errors in a computer software program executing on a computer processor system comprising:
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table means for generating at least one predefined table that is representative of the internal structure of said computer software program and for saving said predefined table in a disk file; error detection means located at error detection points within said computer software program for detecting the occurrence of a software error and for interrupting execution of said program; and data collection and reporting means, cooperative with said error detection means and said table means for collecting data from memory that represents diagnostic data for the software error and for generating a software symptom string, said data collection and reporting means being actuated by the receipt of a macro call from said error detection means, said macro call identifying selected entries in said predefined table that contain the location in memory of said diagnostic data. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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Specification