State capture after execution in dependent sequences

• US 9,047,407 B2
• Filed: 12/16/2011
• Issued: 06/02/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/16/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Jazdzewski, Charles P., Fanning, Michael C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Don
• Assistant Examiner(s): Aguilera, Todd
• Application Number:
  US13/329,130
• Publication Number:
  US 20130159978A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,264 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3636 by tracing the execution of the program

Abstract

The execution of a dynamic code segment sequence that includes at least two code segments in sequence. The first code segment is first executed and the corresponding state of the environment is captured. The second code segment is then executed. When the second code segment is later re-executed, the first code segment is not re-executed again. Rather, the environmental state is set to be the captured state that existed when the first code segment originally executed. Then, the second code segment may be executed without spending the resources required to re-run the first code segment. This may be employed at authoring time, or after deployment time.

Claims

1. A method by which a computing system executes a dynamic code segment sequence in an environment, the code segment sequence comprising a plurality of sequential code segments and the method comprising the following acts:

executing a first code segment;

capturing a first environmental state of a first instance of an execution context, the first environmental state representing a state of at least a portion of the first instance of the execution context after the execution of the first code segment is stopped;

executing a second code segment;

writing a second environmental state of a second instance of the execution context, wherein writing the second environmental state of the second instance of the execution context comprises performing the following for at least one context component in the first instance of the execution context;

detecting that a read is to be performed on the at least one context component, and in response creating a proxy context component for the second environmental state of the second instance of the execution context, the proxy context component referencing the at least one context component as captured in the first environmental state of the first instance of the execution context;

detecting that a write is to be performed on the at least one context component, and in response;

copying values from the at least one context component as captured in the first environmental state of the first instance of the execution context to the proxy context component in the second environmental state of the second instance of the execution context;

declassifying the proxy context component in the second environmental state of the second instance of the execution context as a proxy for said at least one context component; and

performing the write on the copied values copied to the declassified proxy context component.

2. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the method is performed at authoring time.

3. The method in accordance with claim 2, wherein the method further comprises:

an act of executing a third code segment until the third code segment encounters a halt point;

an act of evaluating an environmental state of an execution context of the third code segment at the halt point; and

an act of generating a completion list at the halt point as a result of the evaluation.

4. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the method is performed at deployment time.

5. The method in accordance with claim 4, wherein the method further comprises:

an act of performing a static analysis of the captured first and second environmental states.

6. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the first environmental state is a full capture of the first instance of the execution context, and wherein the second environment state is also a full capture of the second instance of the execution context.

7. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the first environmental state is a full capture of the first instance of the execution context, and wherein the captured second environmental state of the second instance of the execution context comprises an updated capture of the execution context based on the second instance of the execution context as of completion of the second code segment'"'"'s execution.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first code segment is a first dynamic language program, and the second code segment is a second dynamic language program.

10. The computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein said captured first environmental state of the execution context comprises at least a first context component and a second context component, and wherein the first and second context components are dynamic objects, with the dynamic object of the first context component serving as a parent object in a hierarchy of dynamic objects to the dynamic object of the second context component.

11. The computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the dynamic code segment also includes a previous code segment to be executed before the first code segment, and wherein execution of the dynamic code sequence further comprises:

an act of executing the previous code segment; and

an act of capturing an environmental state representing a state of the execution context which exists just before the first code segment executes.

12. The computer program product in accordance with claim 11, wherein the captured environmental state representing the state of the execution context which exists just before the first code segment executes is a full capture, and wherein the captured first environmental state is an updated capture of the captured environmental state representing the state of the execution context which exists just before the first code segment executes.

13. The computer program product in accordance with claim 12, wherein execution of the dynamic code sequence further comprises an act of combining the full capture with the updated capture.

14. The computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the first code segment is a first dynamic language program, and the second code segment is a second dynamic language program.

15. The computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the first code segment is a first script file, and the second code segment is a second script file.

9. A computer program product comprising one or more hardware memory devices having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed the computer-executable instructions cause a computing system to execute a dynamic code segment sequence in an environment, the dynamic code segment sequence including a first code segment followed by a second code segment, wherein the execution of the dynamic code segment sequence comprises acts of:

executing the first code segment;

capturing a first environmental state of a first instance of an execution context, the first environmental state representing a state of at least a portion of the first instance of the execution context after the execution of the first code segment is stopped;

executing the second code segment a first time;

without re-executing the first code segment, setting the environment to the captured first environmental state and then beginning execution of the second code segment a second time;

writing a second environmental state of a second instance of the execution context, wherein writing the second environmental state of the second instance of the execution context comprises performing the following for at least one context component in the first instance of the execution context;

detecting that a read is to be performed on the at least one context component, and in response creating a proxy context component for the second environmental state of the second instance of the execution context, the proxy context component referencing the at least one context component as captured in the first environmental state of the first instance of the execution context;

detecting that a write is to be performed on the at least one context component, and in response;

copying values from the at least one context component as captured in the first environmental state of the first instance of the execution context to the proxy context component in the second environmental state of the second instance of the execution context;

declassifying the proxy context component in the second environmental state of the second instance of the execution context as a proxy for said at least one context component; and

performing the write on the copied values copied to the declassified proxy context component.