JP2003114834A - Usb device evaluation system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To eliminate the necessity of reproducing a trouble, in the occurrence of any trouble during the operation of a USB device under operation evaluation on a PC, by operating the PC in the same procedure as in the occurrence of the trouble for investigation into the cause and correction. SOLUTION: Software for data input and output acquisition and holding is inserted as the form of a filter driver 6 between a logical device driver 2 for controlling the USB device 5 to be evaluated and a USB driver stack 3 of OS standard, so that the transfer data of the USB can be held 12 in a storage device 10 such as memory of the PC. The held data is analyzed by use of analytic software 8, and the analyzed data is used in test tool software 9 capable of generating USB transfer by use of the logical device driver 2.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a function / performance evaluation in USB device development, and more particularly to an evaluation system used when a USB device is connected to a PC and application software is actually operated for evaluation.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, in the development of a device (hereinafter, referred to as a USB device) that is connected to a PC using a USB interface, such as an external storage device or a printer, one of the functions and performances of these USB devices is evaluated. As
It is necessary to actually connect to the PC and use the application software or the like to confirm the operation in the situation where the USB device is actually used.

When any defect is found in the USB device to be evaluated by such evaluation, if the defect occurs, the application software of the PC is operated in the same procedure to reproduce the defect. , The cause of the above defects must be investigated and corrected.

Similarly, after the correction, when the above-mentioned trouble occurs, whether the above-mentioned trouble is corrected by operating the application software of the PC in the same procedure and reproducing the state where the above-mentioned trouble has occurred. Need to check.

At this time, a device such as a transaction generator may be used to automatically execute these procedures.

[0006]

According to the conventional method, when some trouble occurs while operating the developed USB device on a PC, the following causes are taken when the cause is rectified and corrected. Problems arise.

First, when some trouble occurs, it is necessary to reproduce the situation in which the trouble has occurred in order to pursue and correct the cause. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, when the application software of the PC is started, the menu on the application software is selected, the data to be transferred to the USB device is selected, and the transfer execution button is pressed, The above procedure must be repeated to repeat the same procedure as when the problem occurred. If this is not the case, the cause of the defect cannot be investigated, and the correction cannot be confirmed after the defect has been corrected.

However, in the case of a defect having low reproducibility, it takes an enormous amount of time to find an operation that reproduces the problem, and if a complicated operation is required even if it can be found, the cause is pursued. Also, it is not easy to verify the modifications.

In other words, the number of man-hours required for the developer of the USB device to find out the cause when a failure occurs and confirm the correction becomes enormous.

Therefore, there is also a method of using an expensive verification device such as a transaction generator (16 in FIG. 3) capable of generating an arbitrary USB transfer in order to automatically reproduce the situation of the defect. Since these verification devices are used by directly connecting to a USB device as shown in FIG. 3, when the USB device is actually connected to a PC and operated, such as the OS standard USB driver stack of FIG. Do not use the functional part that controls the USB. Therefore, even if the USB data transfer is reproduced, it cannot be said that the verification can be performed in the same state as in the case of being actually used due to the difference in characteristics and the like.

Moreover, when the present invention is used to reproduce a complicated operation defect that occurs when actually connected to a PC, as shown in FIG. 4, after understanding a method for reproducing the defect, An operation program 17 for reproducing the above-mentioned trouble must be created. That is, it is necessary to perform the procedure up to 18 in FIG. 2 before using the transaction generator 16, which is not effective as a solution to the above problem.

[0012]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the present invention, as shown in FIG.
Software for acquiring / holding data input / output in the form of a filter driver 6 between a unique driver or class driver (hereinafter, logical device driver 2) for controlling the B device 5 and the OS standard USB driver stack 3. Is inserted so that data exchanged between the logical device driver 2 and the OS standard USB driver stack 3 can be held in a storage device such as a memory of a PC.

However, in the conventional example shown in FIG. 1, a logical device driver 2 and an OS standard USB driver stack 3 are used.
Similarly to the case of exchanging data between the logical device driver 2 and the OS standard USB driver stack 3 in the case of the present invention shown in FIG. The filter driver 6 only holds the data, and does not process the data.

Further, in the case of newly developing a unique driver for using the development device, a software function for acquiring data input / output may be incorporated in the unique driver as shown in 7 of FIG. It is possible.

Then, the data acquired and held in the filter driver (6 in FIG. 5) or the functional portion (7 in FIG. 6) corresponding thereto is subjected to content analysis using analysis software.

Then, the data analyzed by the analysis software is given to the test tool software as a parameter, and when the data given as the parameter is acquired by the filter drivers 6 and 7, it is actually logical from the application software 1. By transmitting the data sent to the device driver 2 from the test tool to the logical device driver 2, the data given as the argument actually occurred on the USB bus when the filter driver 6 acquired the data. Reproduce the bus cycle.

Here, FIGS. 7 and 8 show the configuration of the present invention including the analysis software 8 and the test tool software 9.

When it is desired to automatically reproduce a state in which a problem occurs when using the USB device 5, which is one of the problems, it is necessary to use the filter drivers 6 and 7 to acquire / hold data at the time of continuous use. deep. By doing so, it becomes possible to reproduce the operation state in all cases, including the time of occurrence of a trouble that is not known when it will occur.
The defect, which requires the procedure of, can be realized by the procedure of FIG.

[0019]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION An embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIG.
A description will be given using 11, 12, and 13.

FIGS. 10 and 11 show the embodiment of FIG. 7, FIG.
13 is an operation diagram at the time of implementing the present invention, which corresponds to the case of the embodiment of FIG.

First, an embodiment of the filter driver 6 will be described.

The filter driver 6 has an I / O REQUEST P that is exchanged between the logical device driver and the OS standard USB driver stack.
At the same time as 12 in FIG. 10 and FIG. 12 which receives all signals such as ACKET (IRP) and stores the signals in the storage device 10 such as the memory of the PC, to the destination of the signals (from the logical device driver). If it is a signal, it is sent to the OS standard USB driver stack, and if it is a signal from the OS standard USB driver stack, it is sent to the logical device driver as it is. 1 of FIGS. 10 and 12
It has the function of 1.

When data is always stored, the operation is always repeated (FIG. 14).

Then, an installation inf file corresponding to the filter driver is described.

The operation is the same when the device-specific driver 7 is developed.

A storage device 1 such as the memory of the PC
The analysis software 8 is developed as a tool for reading the signal 12 such as the IRP held at 0 and analyzing it.

The analysis software 8 is, for example, US
If the data corresponds to the bulk-only transport (hereinafter referred to as BOT) of the B mass storage class, the data is classified into commands, data, and status 19
Then, the signal 12 such as the IRP held in the storage device 10 such as the memory of the PC is analyzed by a method of further analyzing the command to determine the transfer direction and timing of the data. Have a function (Fig. 1
5).

By receiving the analyzed result as an argument, USB data transfer according to the argument is generated, that is, the OS standard USB driver stack 3 and a signal such as IRP are generated by using the logical device driver 2. The test tool software 9 is developed as a tool capable of exchanging.

The test tool software 9 has an interface for transmitting and receiving data to and from the logical device driver 2 and, for example, when a device corresponding to a BOT of a USB mass storage class is an evaluation target, the analysis software 8 is used. Information such as commands, data, status, etc. given as arguments from
And a function of processing the data into a format conforming to the BOT standard, the data of an arbitrary format can be evaluated through the logical device driver 2, that is, the logical device driver 2 and the OS standard USB driver stack 3. It has a function of transmitting and receiving with the USB device 5 (FIG. 16).

Before executing the application software 1 on the PC to evaluate the operation, the filter driver 6 or 7 is installed using the inf file, and some trouble occurs on the bus. In this case, the analysis software 8 is used to acquire / analyze the retained data 12 at the time of occurrence of the defect, and the test tool software 9 is executed with the analyzed data as an argument, so that the bus at the time of occurrence of the defect can be obtained. The data transfer state performed above can be reproduced 15 as it is and as many times as desired.

[0031]

By using the filter driver 6 of the present invention, the contents of USB data transfer generated between the application software 1 and the USB device 5 can be saved in the storage device 10 such as the memory of the PC. It becomes possible to record the status of the USB bus when a failure occurs.

By using the analysis software 8 of the present invention together with the filter driver 6, the USB data transfer contents saved by the filter driver 6 can be used to determine the USB that was used when the failure occurred.
You will be able to know the details of the data transfer.

Further, by using the test tool software 9 of the present invention together with the filter driver 6 and the analysis software 8, even when some trouble occurs while the developed USB device is operated on the PC. As a result, the situation at the time of the occurrence of the problem can be automatically reproduced as it is, and the verification can be efficiently performed. Moreover, by always holding the data transfer state, it is possible to immediately reproduce a defect with low reproducibility as many times as desired.

In other words, it is possible to automate the reproduction of a defect that has required the most man-hours in the past by implementing the present invention, and it is possible to significantly reduce the man-hours for evaluating the function and performance when developing a USB device. Becomes

Of course, in order to maintain the data transfer state at all times, a storage device 10 such as a memory having a large capacity enough to store the data transfer state is required, which is an evaluation PC used when developing a USB device. However, when a USB device developed by utilizing the present invention is normally used, the large-capacity storage device is not necessary.

Similarly, a USB developed using the present invention
When using the device normally, the filter driver 6,
The analysis software 8 and the test tool software 9 are not necessary and can be operated by a PC having a general configuration (FIG. 1).

Further, since the present invention can be realized only by software, it is not necessary to purchase an expensive device such as the transaction generator 16 and the problem can be reproduced even if the transaction generator or the like is used. Since it is not necessary to develop the test program 17 of 1., the verification can be efficiently performed. Moreover,
In the present invention, since the OS standard USB driver stack 3 is used for USB control, the verification can be performed in the same state as when actually used.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a conventional software / hardware configuration for operating a USB device on a PC.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a conventional defect correction procedure.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration when a transaction generator is used.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a procedure for reproducing a defect when a transaction generator is used.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a software / hardware configuration (1) when the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a software / hardware configuration (2) when the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a software / hardware configuration-whole (1) when the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a software / hardware configuration-whole (2) when the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a conventional data flow during operation of a USB device.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a data flow (1) during operation of a USB device when the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a data flow (1) when using the test tool software when the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a data flow (2) during operation of a USB device when the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing a data flow (2) when using the test tool software when the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 14 is an operation flowchart of the filter driver.

[Fig. 15] Operation flow diagram of analysis software

FIG. 16: Operation flow diagram of test tool software

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing a defect correction procedure when the present invention is implemented.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Application software running on PC 2 Logical device driver 3 OS standard USB driver stack 4 USB host controller 5 USB device to be evaluated 6 Filter driver 7 Device-specific driver 8 Analysis software 9 Test tool software 10 PC memory etc. Storage device 11 Conventional data flow 12 Data held by filter driver 13 Reading of data held by filter driver by analysis software 14 Parameters determining operation of test tool software 15 Test tool software at the time of carrying out the present invention Data flow when used 16 Transaction generator 17 Transaction generator execution program 18 Procedure for investigating the cause of failure 19 Data Analysis, classification

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. Software having a function of holding a signal transmitted / received between application software running on a PC and an OS standard USB driver stack (hereinafter, referred to as
USB evaluation system featuring a filter driver). 2. The signal held by the filter driver is analyzed, and the application software and the US
2. The USB evaluation system according to claim 1, further comprising software (hereinafter referred to as analysis software) for detecting commands and data transmitted / received to / from the B driver. 3. A signal transmitted and received between the application software and the USB driver can be reproduced without operating the application software by using a command or data detected by the analysis software as an argument. USB according to claim 2, characterized in that it has software (hereinafter, test tool) capable of performing
Evaluation system. 4. The USB evaluation system according to claim 1, wherein the USB evaluation system has the filter driver characterized by holding a signal at all times during operation of a PC.