Methods, systems and program products for annotating system traces with control program information and presenting annotated system traces

A method of presenting a time-varying state of a system under test, said method comprising:

• presenting, for at least a signal of interest within the system under test, a plurality of signal state indications each indicating a respective state that said signal had during a one of a plurality of cycles of operation of the system under test;
• and
• indicating, in a graphically distinctive manner, at least one cycle of operation during which a control program requested access to a state of said signal.

A data processing system for recording the operation of a system under test, said data processing system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• data storage coupled to said processor and containing a testing tool executable by said processor to cause said data processing system to store, in a trace file within the data storage, a signal state of a signal of interest within the system under test during each of a plurality of cycles of operation of the system under test and to store, in the trace file in association with the signal state, information regarding a requested access to said signal state by a control program during a particular cycle among said plurality of cycles.

A data processing system for generating a presentation of a time-varying state of a system under test within a presentation device, said data processing system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• data storage coupled to said processor and containing a viewer tool executable by said processor to generate a presentation that presents, for at least a signal of interest within the system under test, a plurality of signal state indications each indicating a respective state that said signal had during a one of a plurality of cycles of operation of the system under test and that indicates, in a graphically distinctive manner, at least one cycle of operation during which a control program requested access to a state of said signal.

A program product for recording the operation of a system under test, said program product comprising:

• a computer-usable medium;
• and
• a testing tool within said computer-usable medium and executable by a data processing system to cause said data processing system to store, in a trace file within the data storage, a signal state of a signal of interest within the system under test during each of a plurality of cycles of operation of the system under test and to store, in the trace file in association with the signal state, information regarding a requested access to said signal state by a control program during a particular cycle among said plurality of cycles.

A program product for generating a presentation of a time-varying state of a system under test within a presentation device, said program product comprising:

• a computer-usable medium;
• and
• a viewer tool within said computer-usable medium and executable by a data processing system to generate a presentation that presents, for at least a signal of interest within the system under test, a plurality of signal state indications each indicating a respective state that said signal had during a one of a plurality of cycles of operation of the system under test and that indicates, in a graphically distinctive manner, at least one cycle of operation during which a control program requested access to a state of said signal.