JPH08314766A - Information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To collect information with respect to a fault even when it occurs while plural application programs are executed. CONSTITUTION: A fault information collection function registering/deleting means 32 registers/deletes a fault information collection function added to each application program on/from a fault information function string storage means 38. When a fault detecting means 40 detects the occurrence of the fault, a fault information collection function string call control means 42 acquires fault information by executing the fault information collection function stored in the fault information collection function string storage means 38, and outputs the fault information to a fault information storage means 46. In this way, the fault information of each application program is acquired.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing device, and more particularly, to an information processing device which has a storage means for storing information and which can execute a plurality of application programs for performing different processes or related processes. Regarding the device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There is known an information processing apparatus which performs one process by an operation according to a single or a plurality of application programs in order to process various information such as processing and printing. This information processing apparatus includes a printer device connected to a computer and a multitasking computer. In such an information processing apparatus, various failures such as abnormal termination may occur. To investigate the cause of this failure, write all the contents of the storage device in which the application program at the time of the failure is loaded to a non-volatile storage device such as a hard disk as a file, and then refer to the contents written in the file later. The method of doing is known.

As one of the techniques, in an information processing apparatus in which one application program is executed, analysis data collection processing for collecting the operation progress and state is added to the application program, and an operating system (so-called , OS) detects the occurrence of an abnormality by the application program, and when the abnormality is detected, the analysis data collection process writes the analysis data to a file (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-3139).
(See Japanese Patent Publication No. 18).

[0004]

However, the above technique is effective for a process that operates independently by one application program, but when a plurality of application programs are related to perform one process, , Which application program has the cause cannot be analyzed. That is, when a plurality of such application programs operate together, the cause is in the related application program rather than in the original application program that caused the error, and as a result, the error occurs. It may occur. Therefore, it is necessary to consider a failure through an application program that has caused an abnormality and a program group for performing processing including a program related to the program.

In consideration of the above facts, the present invention makes it possible to easily collect information related to a failure even if a failure occurs when processing according to a plurality of application programs is executed. The purpose is to provide a device.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 1 is provided with a storage means for storing information, and a plurality of means for performing different processing or related processing. At least one executed by the information processing device capable of executing the application program
Registration means for registering attribute information indicating at least association with at least one application program related to performing one process in the storage means, and at least one fault indicating a process different from a predetermined progress process. Failure detection means for detecting, failure information acquisition means for obtaining failure information related to the failure based on the registered attribute information when the failure is detected,
Failure information storage means for storing the obtained failure information in the storage means.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, it is determined whether the attribute information registered by the registration means matches a predetermined condition, and the attribute information is deleted based on the determination result. It is characterized in that it further comprises an erasing means.

The invention according to claim 3 is an end detecting means for detecting the end of at least one of the processing,
And corresponding attribute information deleting means for deleting the attribute information of the application program of the completed processing from the storage means.

[0009]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus including a storage means such as a memory or a hard disk for storing information. In this information processing device, it is possible to execute processing according to a plurality of application programs for performing different processing or related processing. As the information processing device, there is a printer device capable of printing with a plurality of application programs.

In this information processing apparatus, for at least one application program used, which is related to a main application program for performing at least one process executed,
The attribute information indicating at least the association with the main or corresponding application program of the executed at least one process is registered in the storage means by the registration means. Therefore, the mutual association of the application programs related to the main or applicable application program of the executed at least one process is registered corresponding to the main or applicable application program.

The above-mentioned processing is generally performed from start to finish.
The process ends after a predetermined progress process. In this case, when at least one process is different from the predetermined progress process, the fault detecting means detects it as a fault. When this fault is detected, the fault information acquisition unit obtains fault information related to the fault based on the attribute information registered in the storage unit. Since this attribute information indicates at least the association with the main or corresponding application program of the executed at least one process, the relation from the main or corresponding application program of the process in which the failure is detected is related. Fault information can also be obtained for an application program that operates. Fault information includes the application
The device dependency of the program, the end state, the progress of processing, the processing load, etc. can be used.

The failure information obtained by the failure information acquisition means is stored in the storage means by the failure information storage means. Therefore, the failure information stored in the storage means includes the failure information by the related application program in addition to the failure information by the application program that is the main or the corresponding process of which the failure is detected.
Therefore, even when the processing in which the failure has occurred is caused by the execution of a plurality of application programs in association with each other, the failure information resulting from the failure can be reliably stored.

It is expected that the content of the attribute information of the application program will be changed depending on the operation or state of the application program. In the information processing apparatus, depending on the content of this attribute information, that is, conditions such as a predetermined operation and situation of the program, it may not be necessary to collect the attribute information. Therefore, as described in claim 2, it is determined whether or not the attribute information stored in the storage unit matches a predetermined condition, and the attribute information deleting unit that deletes the attribute information based on the determination result. By further including, it is possible to delete the attribute information not related to the failure from the storage means.

Further, since the attribute information is not necessary when the application program ends normally, as described in claim 3, an end detecting means for detecting the end of at least one of the processings. , And corresponding attribute information deleting means for deleting the attribute information of the application program of the completed processing from the storage means, the attribute information can be deleted according to the operation status in the information processing device dynamically having a different software configuration. In addition to being able to store, it is possible to alleviate the trouble of ending processing of the application program and to store the minimum necessary attribute information.

[0015]

Embodiments of an information processing apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, the information processing device 10 includes a bus 12. The bus 12 has an information processing device 10
CPU 14 that performs overall control processing, RAM 16 as a work area used by CPU 14, information processing device 10
A ROM 18 storing a program for controlling the whole is connected. In addition, the bus 12 has a hard disk 21
A hard disk drive 20 for writing information to and reading out the written information, and a console control unit 24 for controlling a console 26 including a keyboard, a display and the like are connected. The hard disk 21
Contains a plurality of application programs.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of the information processing apparatus 10. The information processing apparatus 10 shown in FIG. 2 includes a failure information collection function registration deletion unit 32, an application / program end detection unit 34, and a failure information collection function deletion unit 3.
6, failure information collection function string storage means 38, failure detection means 4
0, failure information collection function sequence call control means 42, failure information collection attribute acquisition means 44, and failure information storage means 46.

The failure information collection function registration deleting means 32, which will be described in detail later, registers the failure information collection function added to the application program in the failure information collection function string storage means 38, or the failure information collection function. This is means for deleting from the failure information collection function string storage means 38. The failure information collection function string storage means 38 is a means for storing the function data of the failure information collection function registered by the failure information collection function registration deletion means 32 in a column format as described later, and in the present embodiment, the RAM 16 fails. It corresponds to the information collection function string storage means.

The application program end detecting means 34 is means for detecting the end of the processing of the executed application program. The failure information collection function erasing means 36 is means for erasing the function data of the failure information collection function of the completed application program from the failure information collection function string storage means 38.

The fault detecting means 40 is means for detecting the occurrence of a fault in the information processing apparatus 10 (for example, the abnormal termination of a certain process). The failure information collection function string call control means 42 is means for executing the failure information collection function stored in the failure information collection function string storage means 38 to acquire failure information and outputting the failure information to the failure information storage means 46. .

Further, the failure information collection attribute acquisition means 44 stores the failure information collection level (hereinafter referred to as system level) of the entire information processing apparatus 10 input from the console 26, and stores the failure information of the application program. This is a means for acquiring the fault information collection related attribute from the identifier. The system level may read a predetermined value and use the read value.

The fault information storage means 46 is a means for storing the fault information output from the fault information collection function sequence call control means 42. In this embodiment, the hard disk 21 and the hard disk drive 20 correspond to the fault information storage means.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. When the information processing apparatus 10 is turned on, the registration / deletion routine of FIG. 3 is executed, and the process proceeds to step 100. In this step 100, the conditions for registration / deletion of the failure information collection function are fetched from the ROM 18. Here, the failure information collection function is information on an application program to which the failure information collection function belongs by execution of the failure information collection function (for example, data owned by the application program itself or predetermined data or This is a function that outputs control information such as memory usage status and hardware dependency status. For example, as shown in FIG. 9, the failure information collection function a58 belongs to the application program A50, reads the control information x52, the control information y54, and the control information z56, and edits them in a form easy to see as shown in the editing example 60. It is what is output. The conditions for registration / deletion are, for example,
Immediately after the program starts running,
It may be a condition to register all the failure information collection functions of the program, or only the failure information collection function that collects failure information when a failure occurs during the processing is registered according to the processing contents of the application program. As described above, the registration / deletion may be appropriately repeated.

In the next step 101, it is determined whether or not the registration / deletion conditions are met. When the determination is negative, the process returns to step 101, and when the determination is affirmative, the next step 10 is performed.
In 2, it is judged whether the registration condition or the deletion condition is met. If the registration conditions are met, step 103
Then, the process proceeds to and the failure information collection function is registered in the failure information collection function string storage means 38. As a result, as shown in FIG. 10, a plurality of pieces of function data of failure information functions are stored in the failure information collection function string storage means 38.

FIG. 10 conceptually shows a state in which three pieces of function data are registered as a failure information collection function list 64 in a column format. At the head of the failure information collection function list 64, a head item indicator 62 indicating the head of the failure information collection function list 64 is stored. When the function data is registered in the failure information collection function string storage means 38, the function data received from the application program is stored in the empty function data area at the end of the failure information collection function list.

When it is determined in step 102 that the deletion condition is satisfied, the process proceeds to step 104, and the function data that matches the deletion condition is deleted from the failure information collection function string storage means 38 and the process ends. When the function data is deleted, the function data that matches the deletion condition is deleted from the failure information collection function list 64, and the function data on the tail side of the deleted function data is moved to the head side.
The process of FIG. 3 corresponds to the process executed by the failure information collection function registration deleting unit 32 of FIG.

In the present embodiment, each function data in the failure information collection function list has a failure information collection function indicator 66, which indicates a failure information collection function, as shown in FIG.
It is composed of a registered application program identifier 68 for identifying an application program corresponding to the failure information collection function and a failure information collection attribute 70 indicating a condition for executing the failure information collection function. The failure information collection attribute 70 is composed of a failure information collection level 72 and a failure information related attribute 74. The failure information collection level 72 represents the level at which the failure information collection function operates as a numerical value, and the failure information related attribute 74 operates the failure information collection function when a failure occurs in a specific application program. It represents an attribute of whether or not. An example for expressing the failure information related attribute 74 by bits is shown in Table 1 below.

[0028]

[Table 1]

In this embodiment, when there are four application programs A, B, C and D corresponding to the processes that can be executed by the fault processing device 10, the bit is set as each fault information collection related attribute. It is expressed by 4 bits from 0 to bit 3. The value of bit 0 represents a condition of whether or not to operate the failure information collection function when a failure occurs in the application program A. When the value is "1", it indicates operation, and when "0", it indicates non-operation. Similarly, the value of bit 1 is the application program B
Represents the condition of whether to operate the failure information collection function when a failure occurs. The value of bit 2 indicates whether the failure information collection function is operated when the failure occurs in the application program C. Bit 3
The value of indicates the condition of whether to operate the failure information collection function when a failure occurs in the application program D. For example, “1010” is stored in the failure information related attribute of the failure information collection function b in FIG. 10, and the failure information collection function b represents that it operates when a failure occurs in the application program B or D. ing. The above corresponds to the data structure of the failure information collection function string storage means shown in FIG.

The end detection routine of FIG. 4 is a process for detecting the end of a certain process, and is executed in response to an interrupt at each processing time or the end of the application program. In step 106, it is judged whether or not the application program has ended, and if the judgment is negative,
This routine ends. On the other hand, if the determination is affirmative, in the next step 108, the failure information collection function erasing means 36.
To identify the application program that was started and terminated and to identify at least one identified application program
The program identifier is sent to the failure information collection function erasing means 36, and this routine ends. The process of FIG. 4 corresponds to the process executed by the end detecting means 34 of the application program of FIG.

The termination process erasing routine of FIG. 5 is a process for erasing the function data corresponding to the terminated process, and is executed by interruption at predetermined time intervals or by sending and receiving the inter-program signal of step 108. In step 110,
Receives (reads) the identifier of the terminated application program. Next, in step 112, the area indicator P indicating the function data area is instructed to the function data area next to the head item indicator 62 to instruct the head function data in the failure information collection function list 64, and the next step 114 At, it is determined whether the function data area designated by the area indicator P is empty. When the determination is affirmative, the function data of the failure information collection function to be deleted is not stored, and the process ends. On the other hand, when the determination is negative, it is determined in the next step 116 whether or not the registered application program identifier of the function data of the function data area designated by the area indicator P and the identifier of the completed application program match. . When the determination is negative, in the next step 120, the area indicator P is instructed to the next function data area of the failure information collection function list 64, and the process returns to step 114. On the other hand, when the determination is affirmative, in the next step 118, the function data designated by the area indicator P is deleted, and this routine is ended. The processing of FIG. 5 corresponds to the processing executed by the failure information collection function erasing means 36 of FIG. Note that the processing of FIG. 2 to FIG.
Is performed in normal condition.

The fault detection routine shown in FIG. 6 shows the processing to be performed when a fault occurs in the information processing apparatus 10, and is executed by interruption at predetermined time intervals or by sending and receiving, for example, an abnormal end signal indicating the fault. . Step 122
Then, it is determined whether or not a failure has occurred. This decision is
It can be determined by the presence / absence of a signal indicating a predetermined failure such as abnormal termination and the set / reset of flags. If the determination is negative, no failure has occurred, so this routine ends. on the other hand,
When the determination is affirmative, in the next step 124, the fault information collection function sequence call control means 42 is activated, the identifier of the application program causing the fault is sent to the fault information collection level output means 44, and this routine is ended.
The process of FIG. 6 corresponds to the process executed by the failure detecting means 40 of FIG.

The related attribute acquisition routine shown in FIG. 7 is a process for obtaining a failure information related attribute, and is executed by interruption at predetermined time intervals or by inter-program signal transfer at step 124. It should be noted that when the information processing apparatus 10 is operating normally before starting this routine, the console 2
It is assumed that the system level value is input from the ten-key pad 6 and the system level value is stored in the RAM 16. In step 128, the identifier of the application program in which the failure has occurred is received from the failure information collection function sequence call control means 42. In the next step 130, R
The system level value stored in the AM 16 is read.
Next, in step 132, the area indicator P is instructed to the first function data area of the failure information collection function list 64. In the next step 132, it is determined whether the function data area designated by the area indicator P is empty. When a negative determination is made, in step 136, the failure information collection attribute is obtained from the identifier of the application program that caused the failure. According to the example shown in Table 1, if a failure occurs in the application program B, for example, bit 1
1110 that is the value of is acquired. On the other hand, when the determination is negative, the system level value and the acquired fault information related attribute are sent to the fault information collection function sequence call control means 42 in step 138, and this routine is ended. The process of FIG. 7 corresponds to the process executed by the failure information collection attribute acquisition unit 44 of FIG.

The fault information storing routine of FIG. 8 is a process for executing the fault information collecting function to acquire and store the fault information, which is interrupted at predetermined time intervals or by the inter-program signal transfer at step 124. To be executed. In step 140, the application that caused the failure
It receives the identifier of the program and sends the identifier to the failure information collection attribute acquisition means 44. In the next step 142, the system level value and the failure information collection attribute are received from the failure information collection attribute acquisition means 44. Next, in step 144, the area indicator P is instructed to the first function data area of the failure information collection function list 64. Next, in step 146, it is determined whether or not the function data area designated by the area indicator P is empty. When the determination is affirmative, since no function data is stored in the subsequent function data area, this routine ends. On the other hand, in the case of a negative determination, in the next step 148, it is determined whether or not the value of the fault information collection level of the fault information collection attribute in the function data indicated by the area indicator P is the system level value or more.

The above judgment is made by, for example, as shown in FIG. 11, the value 80 of the failure information collection level of the failure information collection function a,
A failure information collection level value 82 of the failure information collection function b, a failure information collection level value 84 of the failure information collection function c, a failure information collection level value 86 of the failure information collection function d, and a system level value 90 are set. If it is, the level value 80 of the failure information collection function a and the failure information collection function c
The failure information collection level value 84 is the system level value 9
It is judged to be 0 or more.

When a negative determination is made in step 148,
In step 154, the failure information related attribute 74 in the function data indicated by the area P and the failure information related attribute received from the failure information collection attribute acquisition means 44 are ANDed to determine whether the AND result is 1 Determine whether the related attributes match. If a negative decision is made, the operation proceeds to step 152. On the other hand, step 148 or step 1
If the affirmative judgment is made in 54, the fault information collecting function indicated by the fault information collecting function indicator 66 is executed in step 150, and the obtained fault information is stored in the fault information storing means 4.
Send to 6. In the next step 152, the area indicator P is instructed to the next function data area of the failure information collection function list 64, and the process returns to step 146. The processing of FIG.
Corresponds to the processing executed by the failure information collection function sequence call control means 42. Thereby, the failure information is written in the hard disk 21, and the failure information can be obtained by reading the failure information written in the hard disk 21 with the disk drive 20.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the failure information of not only the application program in which the failure has occurred but also the related application program is collected and saved, so that the cause of the failure can be easily investigated. it can. This alleviates the need for detailed knowledge of the operating system and a great deal of effort to analyze the collected information as in the conventional general method.

Further, since the stored function data is deleted and only the necessary function data is stored, the search for specifying the function data becomes easy and the capacity of the failure information function string storage means can be reduced. .

Further, since the function data stored corresponding to the terminated application program is deleted, unnecessary failure information is generated because the stored function data is related to the function data in which the abnormality has occurred. The application can be prevented from being acquired.
It is possible to reduce the trouble of ending the program.

Moreover, since the collection range of the fault information can be set in advance, it is possible to flexibly change the required collection range of the fault information.

In this embodiment, the nonvolatile hard disk is used as the failure information storage means, but the failure information may be stored in the volatile RAM once and saved in the hard disk after the information processing apparatus is restarted. Further, it may be printed out in an information processing apparatus not equipped with a hard disk.

In a normal state, the failure information collection function is output to a display device such as a console, and when the failure information collection function calling unit calls the failure information collection function, the output destination is switched to the failure information storage unit. Then, it can be used as a tool in the development of application programs.

Further, in the normal state, the system level is set to be high and the collection of fault information is reduced so that the fault information is expected when a fault is expected to occur during a test of the information processing apparatus or a fault reproduction test. If the collection level is set low, effective fault information can be acquired.

Further, in the present embodiment, the identifier of the application program causing the failure is sent to the failure information collection attribute acquisition means via the failure information collection function sequence call control means, but the failure information is directly sent from the failure detection means. It may be sent to the collection attribute acquisition means.

Further, there may be provided means for stopping the execution of the application program when an abnormality is detected. By doing so, it is possible to prevent the malfunction of the entire information processing apparatus due to the abnormality of one application program spreading.

[0046]

As described above, according to the invention described in claim 1, since the failure information by the application program or the relevant application program which is the main or corresponding processing is stored, the failure is caused. Even when the processing that has occurred occurs due to the execution of a plurality of application programs in association with each other, it is possible to obtain the effect that the failure information due to the failure can be reliably stored.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, since the attribute information can be deleted according to a predetermined condition, it is possible to delete the attribute information not related to the failure from the storage means. be able to.

According to the invention described in claim 3, when the end of at least one process is detected, the attribute information of the application program of the completed process can be erased. The effect that the attribute information can be stored according to the processing state can be obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information processing apparatus of this embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing functional blocks of the information processing apparatus according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a process of a fault information collection function registration deleting unit.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing of an application / program end detection means.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the processing of a failure information collection function erasing means.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a process of a fault detecting means.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a process of a failure information collection attribute acquisition unit.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a process of a failure information collection function sequence call control means.

FIG. 9 is a conceptual diagram showing the concept of a failure information collection function.

FIG. 10 is a conceptual diagram showing a concept of a structure of function data stored in a failure information collection function string storage means.

FIG. 11 is a conceptual diagram showing a concept of a fault information collection level.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 information processing device 20 hard disk drive 21 hard disk

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An information processing apparatus comprising a storage unit for storing information, and capable of executing a plurality of application programs for performing different processing or related processing, performs at least one executed processing. Registration means for registering attribute information representing at least a relationship with at least one related application program in the storage means, and failure detection for detecting a failure in which at least one of the processes represents a process different from a predetermined progress process. Means, fault information acquisition means for obtaining fault information related to the fault based on the registered attribute information when the fault is detected, and fault information for storing the obtained fault information in the storage means An information processing device comprising: a storage unit. 2. An attribute information deleting unit for judging whether the attribute information registered by the registration unit matches a predetermined condition and deleting the attribute information based on the judgment result. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: 3. An end detection means for detecting the end of at least one of the processing, and a corresponding attribute information deletion means for deleting the attribute information of the application program of the completed processing from the storage means. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, which is characterized in that.