JP3774507B2 - Sequence display device - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to Resid Sequence display equipment to visually display the temporal transition events occurring irregularly.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Examples of devices that record the occurrence and time of an event and visually display the relationship include an analysis device for an electric circuit, a monitoring device for an electrical communication state, a display device for a state transition on a computer, and the like. Specifically, the following devices have been devised and used in practice.
[0003]
That is, a logic analyzer, a communication protocol analyzer, a SCSI analyzer, a parallel I / O analyzer, a debugging device that displays a task switch sequence with a serial line analyzer, a multitask OS, or the like.
[0004]
There are a wide variety of event sequence display devices that display the relationship between the occurrence of such an event and time. For example, in the designed logic circuit, the potential of a specific signal line is picked up, and the relationship between the potential change of each signal line and the timing thereof are analyzed to analyze whether the designed circuit is operating as intended. It is very effective. The above-described logic analyzer and the like can be given as an apparatus having such a function. Similarly, in the field of data communication equipment, various devices such as the above-described communication protocol analyzer and SCSI analyzer have been put into practical use.
[0005]
Similar devices are used not only for hardware analysis but also for software analysis on computers.
[0006]
That is, in a multitasking OS such as a real-time OS (operating system), the task switch trace information is very effective information for debugging an application program, and it is instantaneously determined whether the program is changing as the developer intended. Judgment can be made. Debugging tools that can graphically represent the state of task switches have already been put into practical use and are used with the time when each task existing in the application acquires the processing of the CPU as a time axis.
[0007]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
By the way, in a logic circuit or the like, the time interval at which an event occurs is indefinite. In other words, the interval from the change in potential of a signal line to the change in potential of a signal line varies, and when the change occurs in a very short time, the change does not occur for several tens or hundreds of times. Such a situation also arises.
[0008]
And in the sequence diagram of events that occurred within a finite time, when the next event occurs in a very short time and when the event does not occur for a long time, the sequence is efficiently drawn on one screen. I can't. In other words, if the graph of the shortest time is expressed in a legible size, the graph of the longest time becomes redundant and the amount of information that can be expressed on one screen is very small. On the other hand, when the longest time is expressed in an appropriate size, the graph width of the shortest time becomes small and becomes unreadable.
[0009]
For example, as shown in FIG. 8, in a device that expresses a time of 10 μs in a size of 1 mm on a screen, a length of 100 mm is required to express a time of 1 msec, and 1 second is expressed. Requires a length of 100 m. It is impossible to display the graph in which data of 10 μs and 1 second are mixed. In other words, the accuracy of the graph and the (temporal) length of the graph are in a trade-off relationship, and if the accuracy is emphasized, the display area expands, and if the display area is kept small, the accuracy of the graph decreases. Such a situation can occur in an actual electronic device.
[0010]
The present invention has been made in view of the above-described conventional problems, and by appropriately adjusting the length of each graph having extremely different sizes, the accuracy can be improved on a screen having a limited size. and its object is to provide a sheet Sequence display equipment that can be expressed without reducing.
[0011]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, in the present invention, a sequence display device is configured as described in (1) and (2) below.
(1) from a plurality of signal lines, a sequence display device for visually displaying the temporal transition of the events that occur irregularly,
An accumulation means for accumulating the occurrence history of all events generated from a plurality of signal lines;
Of all things elephants generated from the plurality of signal lines, each comprising two events occurring from different signal lines, for all combinations of events that occurrence of the two events are continuous, the two One of the interval between occurrence time of the event is converted by a non-linear function, by projecting the conversion results on a time axis, and generating means for generating generated graph for displaying the temporal transition of the accumulated event,
A sequence display device.
(2) The sequence display device according to (1), further comprising cumulative time display means for displaying a cumulative time from occurrence of an arbitrary event among all the events to occurrence of another event different from the event. .
[0013]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
First, the principle of the present invention will be described. The event sequence display device according to the present invention has the following configuration, for example.
[0014]
That is, from the system that extracts the information of the system from the system to be analyzed (logic circuit, computer, data communication device, etc.), the means to store the extracted data (information) and its time, and the accumulated data Means for calculating the length of a graph to be displayed and generating a sequence diagram, and means for displaying the generated event sequence diagram on a screen of a computer or the like.
[0015]
In a device equipped with the above means, even when a short time graph and a long time graph coexist within a certain time, in order to display information efficiently without reducing accuracy, the numerical value of each time interval Is expressed by a non-linear relationship such as Logarithm. That is, when the occurrence time of the nth data of the event sequence information to be displayed is T (n), the time S (n) from the nth occurrence event to the next event is expressed as follows. The
[0016]
S (n) = T (n + 1) -T (n)
In the example using the Logarithm function in this method, the length L (n) on the graph of this data is expressed as follows.
[0017]
L (n) = αlog [βS (n)] (where α and β are constants)
As a result, for example, as shown in FIG. 1, when a time of 10 μs is expressed on the screen in a size of 5 mm, a length of 15 mm is sufficient to express a time of 1 msec, and 1 second is expressed. 25mm is enough for this. Therefore, it is possible to express a length of less than 50 mm even if the length is one day. Thus, according to the present invention, both the accuracy of the graph and the suppression of the (temporal) length of the graph can be achieved.
[0018]
Example 1
Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. Here, an example applied to a logic analyzer is shown.
[0019]
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of this embodiment. In the figure, reference numeral 11 denotes a target system to be analyzed, which includes an on-board microcomputer, a logic circuit such as a non-contact sequence circuit, an electronic circuit, and a data communication device. It is assumed that a probe for picking up an electric signal on the circuit is connected to the target product.
[0020]
Reference numeral 12 denotes an input device for extracting information of the target system 11 and converts the signal from the probe into a logical value. Reference numeral 13 denotes an event history storage device that stores data converted into logical values, and is provided as storage means for storing the occurrence history of events in the target system 11. Two pieces of time information are recorded.
[0021]
Here, the above event is a change in the value of the signal line of interest (Low → High, High → Low). When the target system 11 includes a timer, the absolute time is obtained as a reference time from the timer. When the target system 11 is not provided with a timer, the reference time is obtained from the timer (clock) 14.
[0022]
In FIG. 2, 15 is a graph creation device that creates a visually displayable graph from the data recorded in the event history storage device 13 and outputs it to the display 16. An occurrence graph of events accumulated in the event history storage device 13 is created by conversion with a function (here, Logarithm).
[0023]
In this embodiment, the case where there is one signal line to be recorded is considered. In this case, the state of the signal line changes from one event to the next event, that is, the signal line changes (Low → High or High → Low). I am taking the Logicith in between. FIG. 3 shows an example of a display graph when a certain logic circuit is analyzed. In this example, the state where the target is operating and the state where the target has been idle for a long time are shown on the same screen.
[0024]
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of this embodiment. First, the input device 12 waits for a signal from the target system 11 (step S1). When a signal is input, the signal is converted into a logical value as described above (step S2), and the converted data is stored in the event history. The time data is stored in the device 13 (step S3).
[0025]
Thereafter, until the end condition (a specified number of data has been recorded, etc.) is satisfied, Steps S1 to S3 are repeated to accumulate data (Step S4).
[0026]
When the end condition is satisfied, the graph generating device 15 converts the event occurrence time interval with a non-linear function, and generates the event occurrence graph with the converted time interval (step S5). The graph is displayed on 16 (step S6).
[0027]
(Example 2)
This embodiment shows a case where there are a plurality of signal lines to be recorded in the apparatus of the above embodiment. In this case, since the correlation between events of each signal line is an important factor, Logarithm is taken with reference to the time of occurrence of all events. FIG. 5 shows an example of a graph when an analysis of a certain logic circuit is performed. The horizontal axis represents time and is a logarithmic axis. Events that occur on each signal line, which is a logarithmic reference point, are represented by asterisks on the graph.
[0028]
Here, in this method, as shown in the graph shown in FIG. 5, the events are displayed at the correct time interval, but the graph of each signal line cannot display the correct time. That is, intervals a, b, and c in FIG. 5 represent accurate times, but intervals m and n do not represent accurate times.
[0029]
Therefore, this apparatus has a function of displaying the accumulated time from the ★ mark on the graph by selecting the ★ mark shown on the graph on the screen with a pointing device such as a mouse.
[0030]
Example 3
This embodiment is an example applied to an application program development environment (debugger) on a real-time OS.
[0031]
In the real-time OS, the movement of control is repeated between a plurality of tasks, and the process proceeds. In many real-time OSs, rescheduling is performed after execution of a system call, and control transfer (task switching) between tasks occurs when necessary. Therefore, if the execution task before and after the system call is known, the presence / absence of a task switch and the cause thereof can be examined.
[0032]
FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the multitask debugger according to this embodiment, and the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 2 indicate the same components.
[0033]
The target system 11 includes a data transmission device 21 for transferring the status of the real-time OS kernel to a remote computer. Data from the data transmission device 21 is received by the data reception device 23 on the host computer.
[0034]
The received data is stored in the event history storage device 13. The information recorded in the event history storage device 13 includes the type of system call, the time when the system call occurred, and the task that became active after the system call occurred. It is three of ID. In addition, when the target system 11 includes a timer, the absolute time is obtained as a reference time from the timer. When the target system 11 does not include a timer, the reference time is obtained from the timer 14. Then, the graph creation device 15 creates a visual graph from the data recorded in the event history storage device 13 and sends it to the display 16.
[0035]
This embodiment is almost the same as the case of the first embodiment. In other words, since issuing a real-time OS system call corresponds to the occurrence of an event, the Logarithm of the time from when one system call is issued to the next system call is expressed on a graph.
[0036]
FIG. 7 shows an example in which three tasks are operating on a certain real-time OS. This figure shows the transition of a task that has acquired control of the CPU. When the processing is completed in a very short time, such as the processing time of a system call, the task that has acquired the right to execute for a long time is displayed on the same screen. It is displayed above.
[0037]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, in the display of temporal transition of events that occur irregularly from a plurality of signal lines , the actual time interval is expressed by a nonlinear function such as Logarithm. different in the limited size of the screen on the graph of values, Ru can provide efficiently display device without degrading the accuracy.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a display method according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of Example 1. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a display graph of Example 1. FIG. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display graph of the second embodiment. FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the entire configuration of the third embodiment. FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a display graph of the third embodiment. Explanatory drawing showing [signs]
11 Target system 12 Input device 13 Event history storage device (accumulation means)
14 Timer 15 Graph creation device 16 Display device 21 Data transmission device 22 Data reception device

Claims (2)

A plurality of signal lines, a sequence display device for visually displaying the temporal transition of the events that occur irregularly,
An accumulation means for accumulating the occurrence history of all events generated from a plurality of signal lines;
Of all things elephants generated from the plurality of signal lines, each comprising two events occurring from different signal lines, for all combinations of events that occurrence of the two events are consecutive, the two One of the interval between occurrence time of the event is converted by a non-linear function, by projecting the conversion results on a time axis, and generating means for generating generated graph for displaying the temporal transition of the accumulated event,
A sequence display device comprising: 2. The sequence display according to claim 1, further comprising an accumulated time display means for displaying an accumulated time from occurrence of an arbitrary event among all the events to occurrence of another event different from the event. apparatus.

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