Method for influencing a control program of a control device

A method for updating a control program of a control device, the method comprising:

• providing the control program with a plurality of first functions and at least one of the first functions is configured to control an actuator, the control program being a binary program code;
• providing a memory that has regions occupied by subprograms assigned to the first functions, wherein there is a branch address in the program code of the control program when one of the first functions is called up, and the branch address points to a memory address of a subprogram associated with the function call, wherein the subprogram is a sequence of binary program code, and wherein there is a return command at the end of the sequence of the subprogram program code;
• analyzing the program code of the control program for the occurrence of function calls, and the branch addresses associated with the function calls;
• ascertaining addresses of the return commands;
• determining, from the ascertainment, a size of the memory regions occupied by the particular subprograms of the memory;
• displaying on a display unit the identifiers assigned to the first functions with the memory region sizes and addresses assigned to the particular first functions, the display unit being formed as part of a computer system;
• selecting at least one of the first functions to be deleted by the computer system;
• saving the size and address of the selected first function in an information structure;
• and
• deactivating at least one function call of the selected first function, and/or the first function is replaced by a second function in which the program code of the selected first function is overwritten by the program code of the second function.