System and method for logging messages in an embedded computer system

• US 6,769,079 B1
• Filed: 12/21/2000
• Issued: 07/27/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Borland Software Corporation (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Borland Software Corporation (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Jensen, Robert M., Black, Kenneth R., Currey, Jonathan J., Rodriquez, Jorge E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Iqbal, Nadeem
• Application Number:
  US09/747,504
• Time in Patent Office: 1,314 Days
• Field of Search: 714/45, 714/49, 714/57, 714/39, 714/37, 714/38, 714/26, 714/20, 714/18, 709/207, 709/206, 709/224, 709/237, 709/248
• US Class Current: 714/45
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0775 Content or structure details of the error report, e.g. specific table structure, specific error fields
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence

Abstract

A logging system which accepts logged messages concurrently from any number of parts of the application software. Each message is written to a message queue and then read and passed to a message forwarder, which the message forwarder analyzes one or more of the data fields of the message in order to decide whether to forward a particular message. In the event that the message will be forwarded, the forwarder also determines which destination or destinations to forward it to, which data fields from the logged message will be forwarded, and how those fields will be formatted when forwarded.

The forwarder code executes on its own Operating System thread or task to decouple the continued execution of the application from the process of forwarding the messages to their destination or destinations.

Claims

1. A method for logging messages in an embedded computer system, comprising the steps of:

constructing a log message that includes a plurality of data fields, possibly of different data types, collected in a single log message data structure;

logging said log message in a logger queue;

forwarding said logged message from said queue to a log message forwarder, that executes on a separate operating system thread or task, and executes code that the application software may install; and

determining whether to forward said log message to one or more destinations depending upon the results from said log message data field.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the embedded computer system associates a priority with the log message forwarder and including the further step of controlling the priority of the log message forwarder relative to a priority of other activities in the embedded system.

3. The method of claim 1 further including performing said steps in an object-oriented programming language.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of forwarding said log message includes determining which ones of said data fields in said log message will be forwarded.

5. A method for logging messages in an embedded computer system, comprising the steps of:

constructing a log message that includes a plurality of data fields of one or more different data types that are collected in a single log message data structure;

queuing the log message in a logger queue;

executing a log message forwarder on a separate operating system thread or task, the log message forwarder having a priority associated with it;

providing the log message from the logger queue to the log message forwarder;

determining one or more destinations for the log message by analyzing at least one of the plurality of data fields;

forwarding the log message to the one or more destinations using the log message forwarder; and

controlling the priority associated with the log message forwarder relative to priorities of other threads or tasks in the embedded computer system.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one of the destinations is a second embedded computer system.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one of the destinations is a network management application computer for a telephone network.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the controlling the priority step is performed by an application using a predefined application program interface method, the application program interface method being uniquely associated with the log message forwarder.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising the step of modifying at least one of the data fields using the log message forwarder, the modifying step being performed before the forwarding step.

10. The method of claim 5, further comprising the step of removing at least one of the data fields using the log message forwarder, the removing step being performed before the forwarding step.

11. A method for logging a log message having at least one log value to one or more destinations, comprising the steps of:

performing a memory allocation query to determine whether there is enough free memory to successfully store the at least one log value within an embedded computer system;

creating a log message in memory;

copying the at least one value into the log message;

queuing a reference to the log message into a logger queue;

analyzing the log message to determine the one or more destinations for forwarding the log message; and

forwarding at least part of the log message to the one or more destinations.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the analyzing and forwarding steps are performed by a log message forwarder that executes on a separate operating system thread or task.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one log value comprises at least two log values of at least two distinct data types.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one log value is at least two log values and the step of forwarding at least part of the log message further comprises the steps of selecting at least one value to be forwarded from the at least two log values and forwarding the at least one value to be forwarded to the one or more destinations.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the log message comprises plural data fields, and there is a log value in at least one of the data fields and wherein the forwarding step comprises forwarding the data field containing the log value.