CN117792565A - Error code detection method and device, storage medium and electronic equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

The embodiment of the disclosure relates to an error code detection method, an error code detection device, a storage medium and electronic equipment. The error code detection method comprises the following steps: receiving at least one transmission data packet; decoding the data packet to obtain a decoded data packet, and detecting coding error codes of the decoded data packet to obtain first detection data of the coding error codes; performing data error code detection and/or configuration error code detection on the decoded data packet to obtain second detection data of the data error code detection and/or the configuration error code detection; and determining the error code form of the data packet by combining the first detection data and the second detection data. The error code detection method improves the accuracy of error code detection and reduces the granularity of error code statistics.

Description

Error code detection method and device, storage medium and electronic equipment

Technical Field

The embodiment of the disclosure relates to the technical field of communication testing, in particular to an error code detection method, an error code detection device, a storage medium and electronic equipment.

Background

The purpose of communication is to rapidly, accurately and safely transfer information such as language, characters and images, but error codes in the data transmission process directly destroy the correctness of the information in the information transfer process, and are key factors affecting a communication system, so that error code testing becomes more and more important.

In the related art, the error code detection mechanism is too single, focuses on error code statistics of a large amount of data in the data transmission process, has larger granularity of error code statistics, and cannot quickly determine the specific position and reason of the error code.

Accordingly, there is a need to improve one or more problems in the related art as described above.

It should be noted that the information disclosed in the above background section is only for enhancing understanding of the background of the present disclosure and thus may include information that does not constitute prior art known to those of ordinary skill in the art.

Disclosure of Invention

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to an error detection method, apparatus, storage medium, and electronic device that, at least in part, overcome one or more of the problems due to the limitations and disadvantages of the related art.

In a first aspect, the present disclosure provides an error code detection method, including:

receiving at least one transmission data packet;

decoding the data packet to obtain a decoded data packet, and detecting coding error codes of the decoded data packet to obtain first detection data of the coding error codes;

performing data error code detection and/or configuration error code detection on the decoded data packet to obtain second detection data of the data error code detection and/or the configuration error code detection;

and determining the error code form of the data packet by combining the first detection data and the second detection data.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the disclosure can have the following beneficial effects:

in the embodiment of the disclosure, the method can perform error code detection on the decoded data packet in multiple modes simultaneously, wherein the multiple modes comprise code error code detection, data error code detection, code error code detection, configuration error code detection or code error code detection, data error code detection and configuration error code detection. Finally, a plurality of detection data obtained by a plurality of error code detection modes are combined to determine the form of error codes generated by the data packet, so that the accuracy of error code detection is improved, and the granularity of error code statistics is reduced.

In a second aspect, the present disclosure provides an error detection apparatus, the apparatus comprising:

the data packet receiving module is used for receiving at least one transmission data packet;

the code error detection module is used for decoding the data packet, obtaining a decoded data packet, and detecting the code error of the decoded data packet so as to obtain first detection data of the code error detection;

the data error code detection module and/or the configuration error code detection module is used for carrying out data error code detection and/or configuration error code detection on the decoded data packet so as to obtain second detection data of the data error code detection and/or the configuration error code detection;

and the error code form determining module is used for determining the error code form of the data packet by combining the first detection data and the second detection data.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the disclosure can have the following beneficial effects:

in the embodiment of the disclosure, through each module in the device, error code detection in multiple modes can be performed on the decoded data packet at the same time, and finally, the form of error code generated by the data packet is determined by combining multiple detection data obtained in multiple error code detection modes, so that the accuracy of error code detection is improved, and the granularity of error code statistics is reduced.

In a third aspect, the present disclosure provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements the steps of any one of the error detection methods described above.

In a fourth aspect, the present disclosure provides an electronic device comprising:

a processor; and

a memory for storing executable instructions of the processor;

wherein the processor is configured to perform the steps of any of the above error detection methods via execution of the executable instructions.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the disclosure.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments consistent with the disclosure and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that the drawings in the following description are merely examples of the disclosure and that other drawings may be derived from them without undue effort.

Fig. 1 is a schematic flow chart illustrating steps of a method for detecting an error in an exemplary embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a partitioning structure of a data packet in an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 3 is a schematic block diagram illustrating an error detection apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 illustrates a block flow diagram of a code error detection in an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 illustrates a block flow diagram of data error detection in an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 illustrates a block flow diagram of a configuration error detection in an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a program product for an error detection method according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 8 illustrates a schematic structure of an electronic device in an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

Example embodiments will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the exemplary embodiments may be embodied in many forms and should not be construed as limited to the examples set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the concept of the example embodiments to those skilled in the art. The described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments.

Furthermore, the drawings are merely schematic illustrations of the present disclosure and are not necessarily drawn to scale. The same reference numerals in the drawings denote the same or similar parts, and thus a repetitive description thereof will be omitted. Some of the block diagrams shown in the figures are functional entities and do not necessarily correspond to physically or logically separate entities. These functional entities may be implemented in software or in one or more hardware modules or integrated circuits or in different networks and/or processor devices and/or microcontroller devices.

In this exemplary embodiment, there is provided an error code detection method first, referring to fig. 1, the error code detection method may include the following steps S101 to S104:

step S101: at least one transmission data packet is received.

Step S102: and decoding the data packet to obtain a decoded data packet, and detecting the coding error code of the decoded data packet to obtain first detection data of the coding error code detection.

Step S103: and carrying out data error code detection and/or configuration error code detection on the decoded data packet so as to obtain second detection data of the data error code detection and/or the configuration error code detection.

Step S104: and determining the error code form of the data packet by combining the first detection data and the second detection data.

The method can simultaneously perform error code detection on the decoded data packet in a plurality of modes, wherein the plurality of modes comprise code error code detection, data error code detection, code error code detection, configuration error code detection or code error code detection, data error code detection and configuration error code detection. Finally, a plurality of detection data obtained by a plurality of error code detection modes are combined to determine the form of error codes generated by the data packet, so that the accuracy of error code detection is improved, and the granularity of error code statistics is reduced. The method can quickly determine the error code form of data transmitted through a quick and sensitive high-speed serial interface (such as LVDS interface and HDMI interface). Of course, this method may also be applied to error detection of data transmitted through other forms of interfaces or other manners, which is not limited by the present disclosure.

Hereinafter, each step of the above-described method in the present exemplary embodiment will be described in more detail with reference to fig. 1 to 2.

In step S101, the type of the received transmission data packet is not limited, i.e., the method of the present disclosure may be applied to error detection of data in any type of data packet. In addition, the method can be used for detecting the error condition of one data packet and can also be used for detecting the error condition of a plurality of data packets.

In step S102, the received packet is decoded. Different types of packets have different link protocols, but all packets transmitted through the same port have the same link protocol, and thus, the decoded packets may be divided into a plurality of regions according to the same link protocol.

The data packet shown in fig. 2 is divided into 4 areas, which are a header area, a data information area, a trailer area, and a configuration information area, respectively. The number of partitions and the type of regions in the packet in fig. 2 are only examples and do not represent the limitation of the present disclosure to the partitioning of the packet.

In other examples, the data packet may be divided into 4 zones having the same number as in fig. 2 or 3 zones different from fig. 2 according to the link protocol. The 3-zone packet is only a configuration information zone among the 4-zone packets.

Specifically, the configuration information area is a configuration field formed by a plurality of byte sections, each byte section has a corresponding code check formula therein, and the data information area contains decoding data in the form of 8B/10B, 16B/18B or 64B/66B, etc.

The code error code detection in the step is to detect the normalization of the data in the data information area, and accumulate the number of the nonstandard data as the first detection data. The data normalization detection mainly aims at error code detection of a data coding layer of high-speed link transmission, does not detect the correctness of data transmission, only counts normalization of decoded data in the form of 8B/10B, 16B/18B or 64B/66B and the like, and updates first error code detection data of each packet in real time by taking the packet as a unit. In the subsequent step, after the user receives the first detection data, the error code positioning speed of the lightweight data can be greatly improved.

It can be understood that in the above coding error detection, the detection of the normalization of the data may specifically be coding error detection, that is, detecting whether the coding (decoding) content of the data packet is coded (decoded) according to a preset or predetermined coding manner, and unifying the number of data that does not meet the coding specification to obtain the first detection data of the coding error detection.

Of course, in other embodiments, as shown in FIG. 3, when the decoding data of 8B/10B is detected by encoding error, it is detected whether a polarity error occurs in addition to whether there is an encoding error. The polarity error refers to whether the coding rule of the data packet in the coding process is wrong or not. For example, if the original correct coding rule is changed from the mode a to the mode C, but the mode a is actually changed from the mode B to the mode B during the coding, a false jump occurs, that is, a polarity error occurs. In this embodiment, the data amount that does not conform to the preset encoding mode and the data amount that does not conform to the preset encoding rule need to be counted separately, so that the error pattern can be more clearly defined. For example, when the data amount not conforming to the preset encoding mode is 3 and the data amount not conforming to the preset encoding rule is 0, the user can clearly know that the data of the data information area in the data packet has error codes and is caused by encoding errors.

In step S103, only data error detection may be performed for a packet having only 3 areas, i.e., no configuration information area. The data packet with 4 areas can be used for carrying out configuration error code detection independently or carrying out data error code detection independently, and can also be used for carrying out data error code detection and configuration error code detection simultaneously.

The data error code detection comprises the step of carrying out statistical characteristic detection on the decoded data packets, and aims to judge which specific data packet in a plurality of data packets has error codes, and calculate the error rate of all the data packets according to the data, so as to be used for aging test of mass data and monitoring of long-term communication state. Accordingly, the present disclosure is not limited to a particular data error detection algorithm so long as this objective is achieved.

For example, a cyclic redundancy check (CRC, cyclic Redundancy Check) algorithm may be used, which uses the principles of division and remainder to detect errors, the sender calculates a CRC value and sends it to the receiver along with the data, and the receiver recalculates the CRC for each packet of data received and compares it with the received CRC, and if the two CRC values are different, this indicates that the data is in error. And finally, counting the percentage of the number of the data packets with errors to the number of the total data packets, and obtaining the error rate of the whole data. Of course, in other examples, a longitudinal redundancy check (LRC, longitudinal Redundancy Check) algorithm, an exclusive or check (BCC, block check character) algorithm, or a sum check algorithm may be used, and the check algorithm is to accumulate all data according to Byte, and finally match the reinforcement number with the checksum.

Fig. 4 shows a data error code detection process in an embodiment, in which the number of data packets with error codes is counted in the process of checking the data packets, and the data is substituted into the following calculation formula, so as to obtain the error code rate.

Referring to fig. 5, the above configuration error detection is directed to one error statistic of fine detection. The configuration information in the decoded data typically includes a plurality of configuration fields, each of which in turn is composed of a plurality of bytes, and each of which contains a check formula for the associated Byte. Therefore, the configuration error detection is to check a plurality of configuration domains one by one in one data packet, and the configuration error detection is to perform the configuration error detection on each configuration domain in each packet without distinction between different data packets. The method is more accurate and visual, and the verification errors of the configuration package can be reported to a user to directly locate specific problems, so that the existing error code problems can be improved. The reliability of the configuration error code detection is highest, the accuracy is most accurate, and the configuration error code detection method can be used for key parts such as data configuration information.

In step S104, after the user receives the first detection data and the second detection data, the user immediately locates the erroneous data packet and the error pattern of the specific problem in the data packet, which enhances the reliability of error detection and improves the accuracy of error detection.

It should be noted that, although the steps of the method in the present disclosure are described in a specific order in the drawings, and in step S104, the first detection data and the second detection data are combined to determine the error pattern. However, this does not require or imply that the steps must be performed in this particular order. For example, in some embodiments, step S103 may be performed first, followed by step S102. In other embodiments, step S102 and step S103 may also be performed simultaneously. Of course, in addition to the variation among the step sequences, it is also possible to combine a plurality of steps into one step to be performed, and/or to decompose one step into a plurality of steps to be performed, etc.

Referring to fig. 6, the disclosure further provides an error detection apparatus, where the apparatus includes a data packet receiving module, a coding error detection module, a data error detection module, and/or a configuration error detection module, and an error form determining module. The data packet receiving module is used for receiving at least one transmission data packet. The encoding error detection module is used for decoding the data packet, obtaining a decoded data packet, and detecting encoding error of the decoded data packet to obtain first detection data of encoding error detection. The data error code detection module and/or the configuration error code detection module is used for carrying out data error code detection and/or configuration error code detection on the decoded data packet so as to obtain second detection data of the data error code detection and/or the configuration error code detection. The error code form determining module is used for determining the error code form of the data packet by combining the first detection data and the second detection data.

In one embodiment, the encoding error detection module includes an encoding mode detection unit, configured to detect whether the encoded content of the data packet is encoded according to a preset encoding mode, so as to obtain first detection data of encoding error detection according to a detection result of the encoded content.

In another embodiment, the encoding error detection module includes an encoding mode detection unit and an encoding rule detection unit, which are configured to detect whether the encoded content of the data packet is encoded according to a preset encoding mode, and detect whether the encoding rule of the data packet is a preset encoding rule, so as to obtain first detection data of encoding error detection according to the encoding content detection result and the encoding rule detection result.

The data error code detection module is specifically configured to perform statistical characteristic detection on the decoded data packet, where the statistical characteristic is used to characterize whether error code occurs in the decoded data packet.

The configuration error code detection module is specifically configured to perform error code detection on a plurality of configuration domains of configuration information in the decoded data packet.

According to the error code detection device, through each module in the device, error code detection in various modes can be carried out on the decoded data packet at the same time, and finally, the form of error code generated by the data packet is determined by combining a plurality of detection data obtained in various error code detection modes, so that the accuracy of error code detection is improved, and the granularity of error code statistics is reduced.

The specific manner in which the respective modules or units perform operations in the above-described error detection apparatus has been described in detail in the embodiments of the error detection method, and will not be described in detail herein.

It should be noted that although in the above detailed description several modules or units of a device for action execution are mentioned, such a division is not mandatory. Indeed, the features and functionality of two or more modules or units described above may be embodied in one module or unit in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. Conversely, the features and functions of one module or unit described above may be further divided into a plurality of modules or units to be embodied. The components shown as modules or units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed across multiple network elements. Some or all of the modules can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the wood disclosure scheme. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand and implement the present invention without undue burden.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, there is also provided a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by, for example, a processor, can implement the steps of the error detection method described in any one of the above embodiments. In some possible implementations, various aspects of the disclosure may also be implemented in the form of a program product comprising program code for causing a terminal device to carry out the steps according to the various exemplary embodiments of the invention as described in the above description of the error detection method section, when the program product is run on the terminal device.

Referring to fig. 7, a program product 700 for implementing the above-described method according to an embodiment of the present invention is described, which may employ a portable compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM) and include program code, and may be run on a terminal device, such as a personal computer. However, the program product of the present invention is not limited thereto, and in this document, a readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

The program product may employ any combination of one or more readable media. The readable medium may be a readable signal medium or a readable storage medium. The readable storage medium can be, for example, but is not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or a combination of any of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the readable storage medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable disk, a hard disk, random Access Memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), optical fiber, portable compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

The computer readable storage medium may include a data signal propagated in baseband or as part of a carrier wave, with readable program code embodied therein. Such a propagated data signal may take any of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. A readable storage medium may also be any readable medium that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. Program code embodied on a readable storage medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

Program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computing device, partly on the user's device, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computing device, partly on a remote computing device, or entirely on the remote computing device or server. In the case of remote computing devices, the remote computing device may be connected to the user computing device through any kind of network, including a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), or may be connected to an external computing device (e.g., connected via the Internet using an Internet service provider).

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, an electronic device is also provided, which may include a processor, and a memory for storing executable instructions of the processor. Wherein the processor is configured to perform the steps of the error detection method of any of the embodiments described above via execution of the executable instructions.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the various aspects of the invention may be implemented as a system, method, or program product. Accordingly, aspects of the invention may be embodied in the following forms, namely: an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining hardware and software aspects may be referred to herein as a "circuit," module "or" system.

An electronic device 500 according to this embodiment of the invention is described below with reference to fig. 8. The electronic device 800 shown in fig. 8 is merely an example and should not be construed as limiting the functionality and scope of use of embodiments of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 8, the electronic device 800 is embodied in the form of a general purpose computing device. Components of electronic device 800 may include, but are not limited to: at least one processing unit 810, at least one memory unit 820, a bus 830 that connects the different system components (including memory unit 820 and processing unit 810), a display unit 840, and the like.

Wherein the storage unit stores program code that is executable by the processing unit 810 such that the processing unit 810 performs the steps according to various exemplary embodiments of the present invention described in the above error detection method section of the present specification. For example, the processing unit 810 may perform the steps as shown in fig. 1.

The storage unit 820 may include a readable medium in the form of a volatile memory unit, such as a random access memory unit (RAM) 8201 and/or a cache memory unit 8202, and may further include a read only memory unit (ROM) 8203.

The storage unit 820 may also include a program/utility 8204 having a set (at least one) of program modules 8205, such program modules 8205 including, but not limited to: an operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data, each or some combination of which may include an implementation of a network environment.

Bus 830 may be one or more of several types of bus structures including a memory unit bus or memory unit controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, a processing unit, or a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures.

The electronic device 800 may also communicate with one or more external devices 900 (e.g., keyboard, pointing device, bluetooth device, etc.), one or more devices that enable a user to interact with the electronic device 800, and/or any device (e.g., router, modem, etc.) that enables the electronic device 800 to communicate with one or more other computing devices. Such communication may occur through an input/output (I/O) interface 850. Also, electronic device 800 may communicate with one or more networks such as a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), and/or a public network, such as the Internet, through network adapter 860. Network adapter 860 may communicate with other modules of electronic device 800 via bus 830. It should be appreciated that although not shown, other hardware and/or software modules may be used in connection with electronic device 800, including, but not limited to: microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, data backup storage systems, and the like.

From the above description of embodiments, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that the example embodiments described herein may be implemented in software, or may be implemented in software in combination with the necessary hardware. Thus, the technical solution according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be embodied in the form of a software product, which may be stored in a non-volatile storage medium (may be a CD-ROM, a usb disk, a mobile hard disk, etc.) or on a network, and includes several instructions to cause a computing device (may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to perform the above-described error code detection method according to the embodiments of the present disclosure.

Other embodiments of the disclosure will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the disclosure disclosed herein. This application is intended to cover any adaptations, uses, or adaptations of the disclosure following, in general, the principles of the disclosure and including such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice within the art to which the disclosure pertains. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spirit of the disclosure being indicated by the following claims.

Claims (10)

1. An error code detection method, comprising:

receiving at least one transmission data packet;

decoding the data packet to obtain a decoded data packet, and detecting coding error codes of the decoded data packet to obtain first detection data of the coding error codes;

performing data error code detection and/or configuration error code detection on the decoded data packet to obtain second detection data of the data error code detection and/or the configuration error code detection;

and determining the error code form of the data packet by combining the first detection data and the second detection data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said performing code error detection on said decoded data packet to obtain first detection data for code error detection comprises:

and detecting whether the coding content of the data packet is coded according to a preset coding mode, so as to obtain first detection data of coding error code detection according to a coding content detection result.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said performing the encoding error detection on the data packet to obtain the first detection data of the encoding error detection comprises:

detecting whether the coding content of the data packet is coded according to a preset coding mode or not, and detecting whether the coding rule of the data packet is a preset coding rule or not so as to obtain first detection data of coding error code detection according to the detection result of the coding content and the detection result of the coding rule.

4. A method of detecting errors according to any of claims 1 to 3, wherein said detecting data errors and/or said detecting configuration errors of said decoded data packet comprises detecting data errors of said decoded data packet, said detecting data errors of said decoded data packet comprising:

and detecting statistical characteristics of the decoded data packet, wherein the statistical characteristics are used for representing whether error code occurs in the decoded data packet.

5. A method of detecting errors according to any of claims 1 to 3, wherein said detecting data errors and/or detecting configuration errors of said decoded data packet comprises detecting configuration errors of said decoded data packet, said detecting configuration errors of said decoded data packet comprising:

and detecting error codes of a plurality of configuration domains of configuration information in the decoded data packet.

6. An error code detection apparatus, comprising:

the data packet receiving module is used for receiving at least one transmission data packet;

the code error detection module is used for decoding the data packet, obtaining a decoded data packet, and detecting the code error of the decoded data packet so as to obtain first detection data of the code error detection;

the data error code detection module and/or the configuration error code detection module is used for carrying out data error code detection and/or configuration error code detection on the decoded data packet so as to obtain second detection data of the data error code detection and/or the configuration error code detection;

and the error code form determining module is used for determining the error code form of the data packet by combining the first detection data and the second detection data.

7. The bit error detection apparatus of claim 6, wherein the code bit error detection module comprises:

the coding mode detection unit is used for detecting whether the coding content of the data packet is coded according to a preset coding mode or not so as to obtain first detection data of coding error code detection according to a coding content detection result.

8. The bit error detection apparatus of claim 6, wherein the code bit error detection module comprises:

the coding mode detection unit and the coding rule detection unit are used for detecting whether the coding content of the data packet is coded according to a preset coding mode or not and detecting whether the coding rule of the data packet is a preset coding rule or not so as to obtain first detection data of coding error code detection according to the coding content detection result and the coding rule detection result.

9. A computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored, characterized in that the program, when being executed by a processor, implements the steps of the error detection method of any one of claims 1 to 5.

10. An electronic device, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory for storing executable instructions of the processor;

wherein the processor is configured to perform the steps of the error detection method of any of claims 1 to 5 via execution of the executable instructions.