JP2002215431A - Information processor and method of outputting trace log information - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information processor and a trace log information outputting method capable of surely storing execution history information in an external storage device for a fixed period of time needed to analyze failure occurrence as trace log information without inviting redundancy of storage capacity and without inviting deterioration of system performance by avoiding the deficiency that performance history information at the time when a failure occurs is overwritten by execution history information outputted after the failure occurrence. SOLUTION: A trace information storage functioning part 20 provided in a execution program main body 10 sequentially stores execution history and its processing state as trace information in a trace information storage area 41 in an internal memory 40 while a program is carried out. When a trace information output functioning part 30 provided in the main body 10 receives event notification of failure occurrence from a system monitoring mechanism 70, the functioning part 30 outputs the trace information stored in the storage area 41 in the memory 40 to one of trace information files 60A to 60C placed in an external storage device.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus having a function of outputting execution history information during a program operation to an external storage device as a trace log, and a log information output method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, a computer program has a function of outputting error information when an error occurs. In addition to this type of error information output function, in computer systems where importance is placed on reliability, in order to investigate the cause of program malfunction, execution history information during program operation is used as a trace log as an external storage device such as a magnetic disk device. There is a system having a function of outputting to a computer.

The conventional trace log output function holds on / off of the trace log output as flag information, and specifies whether to output a log or not based on the value of the flag information.

In the above-described conventional trace log output function, whether to output a log or not is determined based on the value of flag information for designating ON / OFF of the trace log output. If the information is not output, there is no log information for investigating the cause when a malfunction of the program occurs, and it becomes difficult to find the cause. In addition, if log information is specified to be output, log information is always output to a trace file in an external storage device, so that the area of the storage device is squeezed, and the processing load further reduces system performance. There was a problem. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, when the size of the log information output to the external storage device reaches a predetermined size, the oldest information is overwritten with the latest information sequentially to keep the size of the log information constant. Techniques for keeping were considered.
As one example, there is a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-225001 (input history information storage processing device). When the log information stored in the internal storage device becomes full, the device disclosed in this publication outputs the log information stored in the internal storage device to the external storage device each time the log information is stored in the internal storage device. The number of times of reading and writing has been reduced. However, with these log information output functions, old information is sequentially deleted, so if it is late to notice a malfunction of the program, the necessary information will be overwritten by the information output later and will be lost. there were. In addition, since processing for reading and writing data to and from an external storage device is always involved with execution of the program processing,
The processing load related to log information output is large, which is one factor that degrades system performance.

[0005]

As described above, in the conventional trace log output function, whether or not to output a log based on the value of the flag information designating on / off of the trace log output is determined. In the technology that determines the cause, if it is specified that log information is not output, it is difficult to find the cause because log information for investigating the cause is lost when a program malfunction occurs If there is a problem and it is specified to output log information, the log information is always output to the trace file of the external storage device, which puts pressure on the storage device area and further reduces the system performance due to the processing load. There was a problem of doing it. When the size of the log information output to the external storage device reaches a predetermined size,
In the technology that keeps the size of log information constant by overwriting the latest information sequentially from the oldest information, the old information is deleted sequentially, so if it is late to notice a malfunction of the program, the necessary information will be Since there is a problem that the information is overwritten by information output later and is lost, and processing for reading and writing data to and from an external storage device is always involved with execution of the program processing.
There is a problem that system performance is reduced by the processing load.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances,
To avoid the inconvenience that the execution history information at the time of failure occurrence is overwritten by the execution history information output after the occurrence of the failure, the execution history information for a certain period required for analyzing the failure occurrence is stored as trace log information. Without inducing capacity redundancy and degrading system performance,
An object of the present invention is to provide an information processing apparatus and a trace log information output method that can be reliably stored in an external storage device.

[0007]

According to the present invention, in order to prevent performance degradation due to trace log output, a fixed amount of trace log is always stored in the internal storage, and when a failure occurs during program processing, the trace log is stored in the internal storage. The stored trace log is output to an external storage device.

That is, the present invention provides an execution history storing means for storing execution history information of a program process in an internal storage area while maintaining a certain size, a fault detecting means for detecting occurrence of a fault during the program processing, Execution history output control means for outputting the execution history information accumulated in the internal storage area to the external storage device by the execution history accumulation means when the failure detection means detects a failure during program processing, The execution history information accumulated in the internal storage area is output to the external storage device only when the occurrence of a failure is detected.

According to the present invention, there is provided an execution history storing means for storing execution history information of a program process in an internal storage area while maintaining a fixed size, a fault detecting means for detecting occurrence of a fault during the program process, and Execution history output control means for outputting execution history information stored in the internal storage area to an external storage device by specifying a file when the failure detection means detects a failure during program processing; Each time the failure detection means detects the occurrence of a failure during program processing, a file is designated and the execution history information accumulated in the internal storage area is output to the file each time.

By providing the function of outputting the execution history information as described above, it is possible to avoid the inconvenience that the execution history information at the time of occurrence of the failure is overwritten by the execution history information output after the occurrence of the failure, and to analyze the occurrence of the failure. The execution history information for a certain period of time required as the trace log information can be reliably stored in the external storage device without causing the storage capacity to become redundant and without deteriorating the system performance. In addition, each time a failure is detected, a file is designated and the execution history information accumulated in the internal storage area is output to the external storage device, so that a plurality of preset files can be targeted. Trace log information at the time of occurrence can be saved in a plurality of arbitrary files continuously, or trace log information can be saved in another file every time a failure occurs, so that highly reliable failure analysis can be efficiently performed. The failure detection factors that trigger the trace log output processing in the failure detection means include not only an internal failure when an error is detected in a program, but also a program exception or an OS interrupt. And the like, and further include an external notification such as an output instruction from an operator by means such as issuing a command. The size of the internal storage area for storing trace logs is
It can be arbitrarily changed by setting.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing essential components of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 10 denotes an execution program main body (application program) having a function of outputting trace log information which is an object of the present invention, reference numeral 20 denotes a trace information storage function unit provided in the execution program main body 10,
Reference numeral 30 denotes a trace information output function unit similarly provided in the execution program body 10. 40 is an internal memory provided with a trace information storage area 41, 50 is an environment setting file, 60A, 60B, and 60C are trace information files stored in an external storage device, and 70 is a system monitoring mechanism for notifying an event of a failure occurrence. .

The trace information storage function unit 20 provided in the execution program body 10 executes
The execution history and its processing state are sequentially stored as trace information in the trace information storage area 41 in the internal memory 40. The specific processing will be described later with reference to FIGS.

The trace information output function unit 30 provided in the execution program main body 10 has a system monitoring mechanism 70.
When the event notification of the occurrence of the failure is received from the external device, the trace information stored in the trace information storage area 41 in the internal memory 40 is stored in the environment setting file among the trace information files 60A, 60B, and 60C stored in the external storage device. 50
Is output to one trace information file (60i) according to the value of the output file designation unit 50b stored in the trace file.

In the environment setting file 50, a trace storage area size specifying unit 50 a for specifying the size of the trace information storage area 41 provided in the internal memory 40, and stored in the trace information storage area 41 in the internal memory 40. An output file specifying unit 50b for specifying which of the trace information files 60A, 60B, and 60C to output the trace information to in the external storage device
Are stored.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an initialization processing routine of the trace information storage area 41 executed by the trace information storage function unit 20 in the execution program body 10.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a trace information storing process executed by the trace information storage function unit 20 in the execution program body 10.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a trace information output process executed by the trace information output function unit 30 in the execution program main body 10 when an event notification of a failure occurrence is issued from the system monitoring mechanism 70. It is.

The operation of the embodiment of the present invention will now be described with reference to the above-mentioned drawings.

The trace information storage function unit 20 is called upon the start of the program processing of the execution program body 10, and the trace information storage function unit 20 is activated to initialize the trace information storage area 41 as shown in FIG. Is executed. In this initialization process, first, the environment setting file 5
The size of the trace storage area is read from the trace storage area size designation unit 50a (step 71 in FIG. 2), the trace information storage area 41 is secured in the internal memory 40 according to the acquired size, and the area is initialized. (Step 72 in FIG. 2), the trace information storage pointer is set at the head position of the trace information storage area 41 (Step 73 in FIG. 2), and the collection and accumulation processing of the trace information is waited.

Thereafter, the execution program main body 10 successively calls the trace information storage function unit 20 with the execution of the program processing in order to leave the history of the program processing, and stores the trace information for leaving the history in the trace information storage function unit. Hand over to 20.

The trace information storage function unit 20 is called from the execution program body 10 and, when it receives the trace information, executes the trace information storing process shown in FIG.
Here, arbitrary delimiter information indicating the boundary of the information is added to the trace information sequentially transferred from the execution program body 10 (step 81 in FIG. 3), and the value of the trace information storage pointer is set to the trace information set as described above. After confirming that the area is within the storage area 41 (No in step 82 in FIG. 3), the trace information and the delimiter information are stored in the storage address in the trace information storage area 41 indicated by the trace information storage pointer (FIG. 3). Step 8
4). Similarly, trace information to be stored thereafter is added with delimiter information at the rear end (step 81 in FIG. 3), and is sequentially added after the trace information and delimiter information stored immediately before (step 82 in FIG. 3). , 84, 85). At this time, the area size of the trace information storage area 41 is kept at a fixed size, and the storage location of the trace information indicated by the trace information storage pointer reaches the end (last address) of the trace information storage area 41 ( FIG. 3 step 82
In the case of (Yes), the process returns to the start (address) of the trace information storage area 41 (step 83 in FIG. 3), and stores the trace information in the trace information storage area 41 while overwriting the old information. By such trace information storage processing, a fixed amount of execution history information during the execution of the program processing is always stored in the trace information storage area 41 in the internal memory 40 as trace information.

During the execution of the above-mentioned program processing, when the execution program main body 10 receives the event notification of the occurrence of the failure from the system monitoring mechanism 70, it calls the trace information output function unit 30 to execute the trace as shown in FIG. Execute information output processing.

At this time, the factors for calling (starting) the trace information output function unit 30 include, in addition to the event notification of the occurrence of a fault called from the execution program body 10, a program exception, an interrupt from the OS, and an operator's call. Notifications accompanying interruptions are also included.

When the trace information output function unit 30 receives the notification accompanying the occurrence of the failure (step 91 in FIG. 4), the trace information file (step 91 in FIG. 4) placed in the external storage device and specified by the output file specification unit 50b of the environment setting file 50 ( For example, the trace information stored in the trace information storage area 41 in the internal memory 40 is written into the trace information file 60A (Step 92 in FIG. 4), and the trace information file 60A is opened (Step 93 in FIG. 4). The file 60A is closed (step 94 in FIG. 4). In this way, every time the trace information output process is performed, the trace information output function unit 30 outputs one trace information file (60A / 60B / 60C) according to the contents specified by the output file specification unit 50b set in the environment setting file 50. Is opened, and the trace information stored in the trace information storage area 41 is output to the trace information file.

As described above, in the normal state processing, the trace information is stored in the trace information storage area 41 provided in the internal memory 40 and access to the external storage is not performed. Of the processing performance can be minimized. In the case of an abnormal condition such as the occurrence of a program exception, the accumulated trace information is output to external storage, so that the cause analysis can be performed after the failure has occurred. Since the information is stored in the trace information storage area 41, the trouble information output to the external storage device can be avoided by being overwritten by the trace information output later and deleted.

Each time a failure is detected, a trace information file is designated and the execution history information accumulated in the internal storage area is output to the external storage device, so that a plurality of preset information can be obtained. Since trace log information at the time of failure can be saved continuously in any of multiple trace information files for the trace information file or trace log information can be saved in a separate file each time a failure occurs, a highly reliable failure Analysis can be performed efficiently.

In this embodiment, the output file is determined by reading the specified contents set in the output file specifying section 50b in the environment setting file 50. However, the size of the trace information storage area is determined. In addition to reading from a file in an external storage device, a means for setting as environment setting information on an internal storage, a means for previously setting a fixed size in a program, or the like may be used. Further, in this embodiment, the trace information storage area 41 is provided in the internal memory 40, but may be provided on a high-speed external storage such as a flash memory in addition to the internal storage. The trace information storage area 41
In addition to using only one process, a plurality of processes may share one area for use.

[0030]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, it is possible to avoid the inconvenience that the execution history information at the time of occurrence of a failure is overwritten by the execution history information output after the occurrence of a failure.
The execution history information for a certain period required for the analysis of the occurrence of a failure is reliably stored in an external storage device as trace log information without causing redundancy in storage capacity and without deteriorating system performance. Can be. Also, each time a failure is detected, a file is specified,
By outputting the execution history information accumulated in the internal storage area to an external storage device, trace log information at the time of occurrence of a failure can be continuously saved in any of a plurality of files for a plurality of preset files, or Each time a failure occurs,
Trace log information can be stored in a separate file, and highly reliable failure analysis can be performed efficiently.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing essential components of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a trace information storage area initialization processing routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a trace information storing process in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a trace information output process in the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Execution program main body (application program) 20 ... Trace accumulation function part 30 ... Trace output function part 40 ... Internal memory 41 ... Trace information storage area 50 ... Environment setting file 50a ... Trace storage area size specification part 50b ... Output file specification part 60A, 60B, 60C: trace information file 70: system monitoring mechanism

Claims (6)

[Claims] An execution history storage unit configured to store execution history information of a program process in an internal storage area while maintaining a predetermined size; a failure detection unit configured to detect occurrence of a failure during the program processing; Execution history output control means for outputting execution history information accumulated in the internal storage area by the execution history accumulation means to an external storage device when a failure during program processing is detected. Processing equipment. 2. An execution history accumulating means for accumulating execution history information of a program process in an internal storage area while maintaining a certain size, a fault detecting means for detecting occurrence of a fault during a program process, and the fault detecting means. Execution history output control means for designating a file and outputting the execution history information accumulated in the internal storage area to an external storage device when a failure during program processing is detected; Each time a failure during processing is detected, one file is designated from a plurality of files prepared in advance, and the execution history information accumulated in the internal storage area is output to the file. Information processing device. 3. The execution history of the program processing is stored in an internal storage area while maintaining a certain size, and when a failure occurs during the program processing, the execution history stored in the internal storage area is stored in an external storage as a trace log. A trace log information output method, characterized in that the method outputs the log information. 4. An execution history of program processing is stored in an internal storage area while maintaining a certain size, and when a failure occurs during program processing, the execution history stored in the internal storage area is output as a trace log as an output file. A trace log information output method characterized in that a trace log information is output to the outside by designating the same. 5. A program product for causing a computer to function, a function of accumulating an execution history of program processing in an internal storage while maintaining a fixed size, and a function of receiving a notification of occurrence of a failure during program processing. A program product for causing a computer to realize a function of outputting the execution history stored in the internal storage to an external storage. 6. A program product for causing a computer to function, a function of accumulating an execution history of program processing in an internal storage while keeping a fixed size, and a function of receiving a notification of occurrence of a failure during program processing. A program product for causing a computer to have a function of designating an output file and outputting the execution history stored in the internal storage to the outside.