Timestamp Based Execution Control for C and Java Programs

Multi-threaded programs are expected to improve responsiveness and conserve resources by dividing an application process into multiple threads for concurrent processing. However, due to scheduling and the interaction of multiple threads, their runtime behavior is more complex than that of single-threaded programs, making which makes debugging difficult unless the concepts specific to multi-threaded programs and the execution order of instructions can be understood. In this pa...

Researchers have developed numerous debugging approaches to help programmers in the debugging process, but these approaches are rarely used in practice. In this paper, we investigate how programmers debug their code and what researchers should consider when developing debugging approaches. We conducted an online questionnaire where 102 programmers provided information about recently fixed bugs. We found that the majority of bugs (69.6 %) are semantic bugs. Memory and concurre...

Existing precise pointer tracing methods introduce substantial runtime overhead to the program being traced and are applicable only at specific program execution points. We propose MappedTrace that leverages compiler-generated read-only maps to accurately identify all pointers in any given snapshot of a program's execution state. The maps record the locations and types of pointers, allowing the tracer to precisely identify pointers without requiring the traced program to main...

Estimating the Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) of an application is an essential task in the context of developing real-time or safety-critical software, but it is also a complex and error-prone process. Conventional approaches require at least some manual inputs from the user, such as loop bounds and infeasible path information, which are hard to obtain and can lead to unsafe results if they are incorrect. This is aggravated by the lack of a comprehensive explanation of the...

Regression bugs occur whenever software functionality that previously worked as desired stops working, or no longer works as expected. Code changes, such as bug fixes or new feature work, may result in a regression bug. Regression bugs are an annoying and painful phenomena in the software development process, requiring a great deal of effort to localize, effectively hindering team progress. In this paper we present Regression Detective, a method which assists the developer lo...

Source code is inherently abstract, which makes it difficult to understand. Activities such as debugging can reveal concrete runtime details, including the values of variables. However, they require that a developer explicitly requests these data for a specific execution moment. We present a simple approach, RuntimeSamp, which collects sample variable values during normal executions of a program by a programmer. These values are then displayed in an ambient way at the end of ...

Execution-replay (ER) is well known in the literature but has been restricted to special system architectures for many years. Improved hardware resources and the maturity of virtual machine technology promise to make ER useful for a broader range of development projects. This paper describes an approach to create a practical, generic ER infrastructure for desktop PC systems using virtual machine technology. In the created VM environment arbitrary application programs will r...

The main goal of Fiddle, a distributed debugging engine, is to provide a flexible platform for developing debugging tools. Fiddle provides a layered set of interfaces with a minimal set of debugging functionalities, for the inspection and control of distributed and multi-threaded applications. This paper illustrates how Fiddle is used to support integrated testing and debugging. The approach described is based on a tool, called Deipa, that interprets sequences of commands r...

Debugging is one of the most important and time consuming activities in software maintenance, yet mainstream debuggers are not well-adapted to several debugging scenarios. This has led to the research of new techniques covering specific families of complex bugs. Notably, recent research proposes to empower developers with scripting DSLs, plugin-based and moldable debuggers. However, these solutions are tailored to specific use-cases, or too costly for one-time-use scenarios. ...

Fault localization is a fundamental aspect of debugging, aiming to identify code regions likely responsible for failures. Traditional techniques primarily correlate statement execution with failures, yet program behavior is influenced by diverse execution features-such as variable values, branch conditions, and definition-use pairs-that can provide richer diagnostic insights. In an empirical study of 310 bugs across 20 projects, we analyzed 17 execution features and assesse...