A knowledge-based approach for the debugging of real-time multiprocessor systems

Todays´ real-time systems become ever more complex and multiprocessor hardware starts pervading many types of equipment. This complexity indicates that real-time programming has matured into a true software engineering discipline which demands the appropriate set of tools for the support of the entire system lifecycle. Since studies show that debugging takes about half of the development time it is obvious that powerful debuggers are needed. The characteristics of real-time systems impose specific requirements on the debugger. The system must be capable of detecting logical as well as timing errors and the invasive nature of the debugging system must not alter the temporal logic of the application. The authors describe the design and the implementation of a debugger for a tightly coupled multiprocessor real-time system which complies with those specific requirements. The paper emphasizes on the high level tools which are necessary for the analysis and the interpretation of the trace data which has been collected at runtime. Those tools are necessary due to the high amounts of trace data being collected