US 8,949,103 B2 · Program code simulator

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating simulation of a computer program. A program representation is generated from a computer program. A simulation of the program is performed. Simulation may include applying heuristics to determine program flow for selected instructions, such as a branch instruction or a loop instruction. Simulation may also include creating imaginary objects as surrogates for real objects, when program code to create real objects is restricted, or fields of the objects are unavailable or uncertain, or for other reasons. Data descriptive of the simulation is inserted into the program representation. A visualizer may retrieve the program representation and generate a visualization that shows sequence flows resulting from the simulation.

Claims19

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method for simulating a computer program execution, comprising:

a) generating a program representation representing the computer program, the program representation including data representative of a plurality of instructions of the computer program;
b) performing a simulated execution of the program, the simulated execution comprising:
i) determining a control flow of the plurality of instructions of the computer program;
ii) simulating a call instruction that invokes a first unavailable method;
iii) if an instantiation of a first object is dependent on a second unavailable method or an unavailable second object, creating an imaginary third object as a surrogate for the first object;
and
c) based on performing the simulated execution, inserting dynamic data indicative of the control flow into the program representation.

4 more elements

A hardware computer-readable storage medium comprising processor executable instructions configured to perform actions comprising:

a) generating a directed graph program representation representing a computer program having a plurality of instructions;
b) determining a control flow of the plurality of instructions by traversing the directed graph program representation and performing a simulated execution of the computer program, performing the simulated execution comprising:
i) in response to determining that an object constructor is unavailable, creating an imaginary first object as a surrogate for the object;
ii) in response to determining that an invoked method is unavailable, if the invoked method has an associated return object, creating an imaginary second object as a surrogate for the return object;
iii) determining a control flow of a conditional branch instruction having a corresponding condition, based on a predetermined specification independent of the condition;
c) inserting dynamic data descriptive of the control flow of the plurality of instructions into the directed graph program representation;
and
d) enabling generation of a visualization indicative of the control flow of the plurality of instructions, based on the directed graph program representation.

5 more elements

A computer-based system for simulating execution of a computer program having a plurality of program instructions, comprising:

a) a mechanism that receives a representation of the computer program;
b) simulation means for traversing the representation of the computer program and determining a control flow by simulating execution of the plurality of program instructions, comprising computer executable instructions configured to simulate instantiation of an object by selectively creating an imaginary object based on whether a dependency for creating the object is available;
c) means for storing data representative of the determined control flow;
and d) a visualization component that generates a visualization representative of the determined control flow, based on the stored data.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Program code simulator

Life of this patent

Program code simulator

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims19