JP2926590B1 - Program debugger, program debugging method and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

Abstract: PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a debugger which can correspond to a program of a plurality of file formats. When a user inputs a program name of a program to be debugged from an input device, a file format automatic determination unit determines the file format and calls a corresponding data access function from a file format dependence unit. The file format dependent unit 23 reads out the debug information of the program from the debug target program storage unit 31. The file format automatic determination unit 22 creates a database based on the debug information. The common processing unit 21 loads a debug target program into the target system unit 5 via the target communication unit 24 and executes debugging by using the data access function described above. At this time, the database and the data access function are activated at appropriate times.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a program debugger and a program debugging method for verifying the validity of a compiled program.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Typical file formats of a program include ELF, COFF, DWARF and the like. These file formats differ depending on a compiler vendor and a target system on which a program to be debugged is loaded. Becomes Different file formats have different procedures for reading data. Therefore, the conventional program debugger
It is provided separately for each debug configuration system such as a compiler and target system.

[0003]

The above-mentioned conventional program debugger can handle only one file format, and there is almost no commonality between the respective file formats. Therefore, if the development system is changed during the development, If, for example, the file format of the program is changed, the program created in the previous system cannot be used in the new development system. Also, if you want to use a program created in a different environment in the past and a program created in a new environment at the same time, the file format of all programs must be unified because the debugger can handle only a single file format. was there. Therefore, it was necessary to change the program created in the old format to the new format using some means. This is not effective in terms of improving development efficiency and reusing past resources.

[0004] It is an object of the present invention to provide a program debugger and a program debugging method which support a plurality of file formats in order to solve this problem.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a program debugger and a program debugging method capable of simultaneously debugging a plurality of programs having different file formats.

[0006]

A program debugger according to the present invention comprises processing means depending on a file format of a program for each file format. When a user inputs a program name of a program to be debugged, the program debugger responds. Activating the processing means, performing predetermined processing on a program to be debugged on a storage device and loading the program into a target system, and calling the processing means at a time when debugging is performed on the target system. And

A program debugger according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention has a data access function for each file format, finds a program to be debugged having the program name from the storage device, and reads out the debug information. A file format automatic discriminating unit for discriminating a file format for the program name, switching and starting the corresponding file format dependent unit, creating a database based on the debug information from the file format dependent unit, and providing the database for debugging. A target communication unit for transmitting and receiving information between the debugger and the target system; and a user interface unit between the user and the file format automatic discrimination unit. And having a common processing unit for mediating information exchange between the target communication unit.

A program debugger according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the file format dependent section is modularized and can be added in accordance with a new file format.

Further, the program debugging method of the present invention comprises: a step of determining a file format of a corresponding program when a user inputs a program name of a program to be debugged; a step of calling a data access function corresponding to the file format; Reading the debug information from the debug target program by the data access function to create a database; loading the debug target program into the target system by the data access function; and loading the debug target program on the target system. It has a procedure for executing, a procedure for activating the database and the data access function at the time of the execution, and a procedure for outputting a result of the debugging.

According to the present invention, the file format of a program to be downloaded is automatically determined in a debugger,
Switch the internal processing of debugging. The user interface can be made uniform by resolving differences between file formats by internal processing. Therefore, the user can download the program to the debugger without having to change the file format of the program. In addition, the user can perform debugging work on the interface without being aware of the difference in the file format of the program.

[0011]

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described.

The program debugger of the present invention includes processing means for each file format of a program, the processing means depending on the file format, and when a user inputs a program name of a program to be debugged, the processing means corresponding to this is activated. Then, a predetermined process is performed on the program to be debugged on the storage device and loaded into the target system, and when the debugging is executed on the target system, the processing means is called at an appropriate time.

Further, the program debugging method of the present invention comprises: a step of determining a file format of a corresponding program when a user inputs a program name of a program to be debugged; a step of calling a data access function corresponding to the file format; Reading the debug information from the debug target program by the data access function to create a database; loading the debug target program into the target system by the data access function; and loading the debug target program on the target system. It has a procedure for executing, a procedure for activating the database and the data access function at the time of the execution, and a procedure for outputting a result of the debugging.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

Normally, when a C source program is applied to a compiler, only an assemble program is generated, and the association with the original C source is lost. That is, which line in the C source program corresponds to which address,
Dependencies such as what variables are located in what memory locations are lost after compilation. Therefore, the present invention adds the dependency information to the program as debug information, and the debugger reads the dependency information described in the debug information and stores it as a database in a form that can be easily processed. This realizes the functions required for the debugger.

The file format of the program to be debugged is described in EL
F, COFF, DWARF, etc. are established, but it is arbitrary what file format is adopted by a compiler created by a certain vendor.
Because the data format of the debug information in each file format is different, we decided to have the database structure dependent on it.

The main data stored in the database is as follows.

Information on the name of the C source program used to create the program and the location (directory) where the file is stored.

Information indicating what functions and variables are described in a certain C source file. Information on where the function / variable corresponds in the assembly program.

Information indicating which position in the assemble program corresponds to a C source line described in a certain C source file.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention. The debugger 2 is a data processing device that operates under program control, and includes an input device 1 such as a keyboard.
And a storage device 3 for storing information, an output device 4 such as a display device or a printing device, and a target system 5 on which a program to be debugged is loaded. Further, the debugger 2 includes a common processing unit 21, an automatic file format determination unit 22, a file format dependent unit 23 corresponding to a file format, and a target communication unit 24.

The debugger / common processing unit 21 has a user interface function, and mediates information between a user and lower modules (the file format dependent unit 23 and the target system 5). The file format dependent unit 23 reads out the debug information included in the program to be downloaded to the target system 5 and returns the information of the program in response to a request from the common processing unit 21. Since the procedure for reading data differs for each file format of the program, the file format dependent unit 23 has a different data access function for each file format. The file format automatic determination unit 22 has a function of determining the file format type of a program downloaded to the target system 5 and calling an appropriate data access function in the file format dependent unit 23 according to the format.

The storage device 3 includes a debug target program storage section 31 which stores a program to be downloaded to the target system 5 in advance.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 1, FIG. 2 and FIG.

First, when downloading a program to the target system 5, the name of the program to be downloaded is input from the input device 1 (step S1 in FIG. 2).
This file name is passed to the common processing unit 21. The file format dependent unit 23 searches for a program having a corresponding file name from the debug target program storage unit 31 according to an instruction from the common processing unit 21 and reads debug information included in this file. At this time, since the file format of the program is not yet known and the procedure for reading data cannot be determined, the file format automatic discrimination unit 22 first checks which format the file format of the program has. The program has a key for discrimination for each file format (such as having a certain pattern of data at the beginning of the file), and seeks through the file to determine which file format the program has. (S2).

Thereafter, the file format automatic discrimination section 22 calls a download function for the file format of the program, and creates a database relating to the program (S3). Since the database also includes file format information, it is not necessary to check the file format of the program each time the program information is accessed thereafter. The common processing unit 21 performs, based on the information of the created database,
By writing the binary data included in the program to the target system 5 via the target communication unit 24, the debug download process ends.

Next, when an actual debugging process is performed, for example, the value of the variable a described in the program A is referred to. At this time, the common processing unit 21 first refers to the database of the program A and acquires the file format α of the program A (step S in FIG. 3).
5). In this case, since the format is A (S
6) When the variable reference function for the file format α is called, the information (address, size, etc.) of the variable a is read from the file of the program A in accordance with the reading method of the file format α (S7). By passing the parameter obtained here to the target communication unit 24, an appropriate value can be read from the address corresponding to the variable a (S9).

It is assumed that the value of the variable b described in the program B is subsequently referred to. At this time, the file format of the program B is obtained from the database of the program B (S5). Even when the file format β of the program B is different from the file format α of the program A, the fact that the file format is different from that of the program A can be known in advance from the information in the database (S6).
Variable reference function suitable for
8).

Furthermore, even when using other debugger functions, necessary information can always be obtained by performing processing suitable for the file format, as in the case of using variables.

Next, as another operation example of the present embodiment, a case where a plurality of programs having different file formats are simultaneously downloaded and debugged will be described.

For example, assume that a program A having the file format α and a program B having the file format β are downloaded simultaneously. Also,
It is assumed that the program A is generated by compiling the source file a, and the program B is generated by compiling the source file b. The programs A and B are downloaded into the memory area of the target system 5, and the memory areas of the programs A and B do not overlap at all. At this time, a program uniquely corresponding to a certain address in the memory of the target system can be determined.

For example, if program A has an area of 0 to 100 and B has an area of 200 to 300, it can be uniquely determined that the program for the address of address 50 is A.

Here, it is assumed that the contents of the source file for the loaded program are to be displayed as the display of the debugger. When the loaded program is executed on the target system 5, a program counter (hereinafter, PC) register value on the target system 5 changes with execution. When the source file line of the program to be displayed on the debugger is moved in accordance with the execution of the program on the target system 5, a change in the PC register value inside the target system 5 is constantly monitored to check the corresponding source line. I have to find a position. The current PC register value can be obtained through the target communication unit 24.
Whether the program corresponding to the C register value is A or B can be uniquely determined (this determination process is performed by the file format automatic determination unit 22). That is, since the database includes information indicating which address in the memory area corresponds to a certain line in the source file, it is possible to output the association of one line number of the address based on the information. .

In the above example, if the acquired PC register value is 50, the program corresponding to that address is A, so the program line information corresponding to address 50 is obtained from the program A database. Then, the debugger is displayed based on the information. Further, the program in the target is continuously executed, and the PC register value becomes 25
Suppose that it becomes 0. At this time, since the program corresponding to the address is B, the information of the program line corresponding to the address 250 is obtained from the database of the program B, and the debugger is displayed based on the information. Although the processing contents are different between the line number search processing for the format α and the processing for the format β, the file format automatic discrimination unit 22 can automatically call the necessary processing to acquire data for output. it can. At this time, by absorbing all differences in the file format in the file format dependent unit 23, the output contents can be unified to a uniform one independent of the file format. Therefore, the user of the debugger can use both programs in exactly the same operating environment without worrying about the difference in the file format.

Next, another embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

The file format dependent unit 23 in FIG. 1 is originally included in the debugger 2,
Basically, the number of file formats to be supported must be prepared in advance (see FIG. 4).
A). However, this cannot handle unknown file formats. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 4B,
When a file format is treated as a separate module and a new file format is supported, only a file format dependent portion 54 corresponding to the new file format is newly created and added to the file format dependent portions 52 and 53 as the old modules. Thus, any file format can be supported.

The debugger shown in FIGS. 1 and 4 is realized by a program, recorded on a computer-readable recording medium such as a semiconductor memory or a magnetic disk, and read and executed by a computer to perform debugging. It may be executed.

[0038]

According to the present invention, first, since the file format of the program is determined on the debugger side, the user does not need to be aware of the file format. That is, a program created by any compiler can be downloaded and debugged.

Second, even if a plurality of programs having different file formats are simultaneously loaded into the target system without converting the file format,
This has the effect of enabling debugging at the same time.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart for downloading a debug target according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a process of obtaining variable values during debugging according to the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a main part of another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Input device 2 Debugger 3 Storage device 4 Output device 5 Target system 21 Common processing part 22, 51 File format automatic discrimination part 23, 23a, 23b, 52, 53, 54 File format dependent part 24 Target communication part 31 Debug target program storage Department

Claims (6)

(57) [Claims] 1. A processing means depending on a file format of a program is provided, and when a user inputs a program name of a program to be debugged, the processing means corresponding to the program name is activated and stored in a storage device. A program debugger which performs predetermined processing on a program to be debugged and loads the program into a target system, and calls the processing means at appropriate times when debugging is performed on the target system. 2. A file format dependent unit having a data access function for each file format, searching for a debug target program having the program name from the storage device, and reading out the debug information, and a file format for the program name. A file format automatic discriminating section for switching and starting the corresponding file format dependent section, creating a database based on the debug information from the file format dependent section, and providing the file for debugging; and between the debugger and the target system. A target communication unit for transmitting and receiving information, and a user interface unit between the user and the common communication unit for mediating information transmission and reception between the file format automatic discrimination unit and the target communication unit. Program debugger according to claim 1; and a processing section. 3. The program debugger according to claim 2, wherein said file format dependent section is modularized and can be added in accordance with a new file format. 4. The file format is ELF, C
4. The program debugger according to claim 1, wherein the program debugger is OFF or DWARF. 5. A procedure for determining a file format of a corresponding program when a user inputs a program name of a program to be debugged, a procedure for calling a data access function corresponding to the file format, and a procedure for calling a data access function corresponding to the file format. Reading debug information from the program to create a database, loading the debug target program into the target system by the data access function,
A program debugging method comprising: a step of executing the debug target program on the target system; a step of activating the database and the data access function at the time of the execution; and a step of outputting a result of the debug. 6. A procedure for determining a file format of a corresponding program when a user inputs a program name of a program to be debugged, a procedure for calling a data access function corresponding to the file format, and a procedure for calling a data access function corresponding to the file format. Reading debug information from the program to create a database, loading the debug target program into the target system by the data access function,
Causing a computer to execute a program debugging method having a procedure of executing the program to be debugged on the target system, a procedure of activating the database and data access function at the time of the execution, and a procedure of outputting a result of the debugging. Readable recording medium on which a program for recording is recorded.