Non-Stop Production Debugging via Dynamic Control Flow Visualization
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Debugging in production environments is challenging due to the disruption caused by attaching live debuggers, which stop process execution, and logging methods provide incomplete and performance-impacting control flow information that is not local to specific function invocations.
Innovation Solution
A diagnostic tool that dynamically instruments a running application to collect historical control flow information without interrupting execution, allowing for non-stopping breakpoints and exception handling, enabling visualization of control flow data specific to function invocations and providing detailed insights into program execution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a live debugger is attached to a running application to collect control flow information, then debugging capability is improved, but process execution is interrupted
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-instrumenting the application code with debugging hooks and metadata before production deployment. This allows the debugger to collect control flow information by reading pre-prepared data structures rather than inserting breakpoints that halt execution, thus maintaining both debugging capability and execution continuity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a virtual copy of the control flow information through data flow graphs and execution path representations that mirror the actual program execution. This virtual model allows debugging operations to be performed on the copy without affecting the original running process, resolving the contradiction between debugging access and execution continuity
2Loss of information
If traditional logging methods are used to track control flow, then some execution information is captured, but performance is degraded and information is not local to specific function invocations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments control flow information collection by function invocation, creating separate data flow graphs for each function call. This segmentation allows the system to collect detailed local control flow information without globally instrumenting all code paths, reducing overhead while maintaining information completeness for specific functions
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality by providing tailored control flow information specific to each function invocation context. The data flow graphs capture execution paths, variables, and control decisions locally relevant to that specific function call, avoiding the performance penalty of global logging while ensuring complete local information capture
3Loss of information
If comprehensive control flow data is collected for all function invocations, then debugging information completeness is improved, but data processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameter of data representation from traditional stack traces and log files to data flow graphs with structured nodes and edges. This parameter change organizes control flow information in a hierarchical, visual format that reduces processing complexity while maintaining complete debugging information, as the graph structure naturally captures execution paths and variable dependencies
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2a
Figure 2b
AI summary
A diagnostic tool can dynamically instrument an application to collect program control flow information using one or more non-stopping production breakpoints. Analyzed program control flow information can be displayed. Dynamic code rewriting techniques can be used to change the production software without deploying new source code. The information collected at the non-stopping breakpoint can include the actual control flow that an instance of the production application took to reach the breakpoint in addition to information about the data. The analyzed control flow information can be visualized in a diagnostic tool allowing a user to see the path an execution of the program took to arrive at a particular breakpoint.