US 5,119,377 A · System and method for software error early detection and data capture

Abstract

A process for detecting software errors in a computer program and automatically gathering diagnostic data limited to the error to be resolved. Error detection code is placed within the software program during program development. When an error or failure is detected, this process is called and captures only the data required to debug the software error. The error detection code notifies the process of which data to capture by selecting entries from a table within the process. This table, known as an Application Data Table (ADT), contains the layout and format of all data areas used by the calling problem program and information required to build a generic alert and send the generic alert to a computer network monitor program. This process is only called conditionally when an error is detected. It is completely idle until such a condition occurs.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A method of detecting and diagnosing software errors in a computer software program executing on a computer processor system comprising the steps of:

defining the internal structure of the computer software program and recording said internal structure in at least one predefined table in a disk file;
placing error detection points within said computer software program which are activated individually by the occurrence of a software error to signal when diagnostic data is to be collected;
responsive to the receipt of a signal to collect diagnostic data generated by an activated error detection point, transferring control of said computer software program to a data collection and reporting routine;
collecting and storing diagnostic data based on a first set of keyword-value pairs passed by the activated error detection point on a macro call to said data collection and reporting routine, and the computer software program internal structure contained in said predefined table;
generating a unique software symptom string under control of the data collection and reporting routine;
and
recording said software symptom string in a software program error log.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for software error early detection and data capture

Life of this patent

System and method for software error early detection and data capture

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims15