Method and apparatus for determining failure similarity in computing device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10235234-B2
Application number	US-201615384597-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 20, 2016
Priority date	Dec 29, 2015
Publication date	Mar 19, 2019
Grant date	Mar 19, 2019

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and an apparatus for a computing device. The computing device may generate stacks for crash dump in response to failures, each of the stacks may include a plurality of stack frames from bottom to top, and each of the stack frames may include function information associated with a corresponding failure. The method may include: extracting corresponding function name information from the stack frames in the stacks; generating simplified stack frames based on the corresponding function name information to obtain simplified stacks for the stacks; and determining a similarity between the failures based on a similarity between the simplified stacks of the failures.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method implemented in a computing device, the computing device generating stacks for crash dump in response to failures, each of the stacks including a plurality of stack frames from bottom to top, and each of the stack frames including function information associated with a corresponding failure, the method comprising:
extracting corresponding function name information from the stack frames in the stacks;
generating simplified stack frames from the stack frames based on the corresponding function name information to obtain simplified stacks for the failures; and
determining a similarity between the failures based on a similarity between the simplified stacks for the failures by:
removing the simplified stack frames one by one from the simplified stack from bottom towards top till only a simplified stack frame at the top is left, a sub-stack being generated in response to one of the simplified stack frames being removed;
determining the similarity between the failures based on a similarity between the simplified stacks and a similarity between the sub-stacks of the simplified stacks;
obtaining simplified stacks and sub-stacks of the simplified stacks for a plurality of failures; and
generating a mapping table between the plurality of failures and the simplified stacks for the plurality of failures and between the plurality of failures and the sub-stacks.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein generating simplified stack frames based on the corresponding function name information for the stack frames comprises:
generating the simplified stack frames only based on the corresponding function name information for the stack frames.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein generating simplified stack frames based on the corresponding function name information for the stack frames comprises:
generating the simplified stack frames based on the corresponding function name information and corresponding module name information for the stack frames.

4. The method according to claim 3 , further comprising:
extracting the corresponding module name information from the stack frames, or
determining the corresponding module name information by looking up function address information in the stack frames.

5. The method according to claim 3 , further comprising:
setting separators between the corresponding function name information and the corresponding module name information in the simplified stack frames.

6. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
determining the similarity between the failures based on common simplified stacks of the failures or the sub-stacks of the failures having a largest number of common simplified stack frames.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein determining a similarity between the failures based on a similarity between the simplified stacks comprises:
obtaining simplified stacks and sub-stacks of the simplified stacks for a new failure; and
searching for the simplified stacks and the sub-stacks of the simplified stacks for the new failure from the mapping table to determine a failure having a same simplified stack or sub-stack as the new failure.

8. The method according to claim 7 , further comprising:
adding into the mapping table a simplified stack or a sub-stack for the new failure that is missed in the mapping table.

9. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
generating the mapping table using a Hash algorithm.

10. An apparatus for a computing device, the computing device generating stacks for crash dump in response to failures, each of the stacks including a plurality of stack frames from bottom to top, and each of the stack frames including function information associated with a corresponding failure, the apparatus comprising at least one processor; and at least one memory comprising program module, wherein the at least one memory and the program modules are configured, with the at least one processor, configured to:
extract, by an extracting unit, corresponding function name information from the stack frames in the stacks;
generate, by a simplifying unit, simplified stack frames from the stack frames based on the corresponding function name information to obtain simplified stacks for the failures;
determine, by a similarity determining unit, a similarity between the failures based on a similarity between the simplified stacks for the failures;
removing, by a sub-stack generating unit, the simplified stack frames one by one from the simplified stack from bottom towards top till only a simplified stack frame at the top is left, a sub-stack being generated in response to one of the simplified stack frames being removed; and
wherein the similarity determining unit is further configured to determine the similarity between the failures based on a similarity between the simplified stacks and a similarity between the sub-stacks of the simplified stacks.

11. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the simplifying unit is configured to:
generate the simplified stack frames only based on the corresponding function name information for the stack frames.

12. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the simplifying unit is configured to:
generate the simplified stack frames based on the corresponding function name information and corresponding module name information for the stack frames.

13. The apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein the simplifying unit is further configured to:
extract the corresponding module name information from the stack frames, or
determine the corresponding module name information by looking up function address information in the stack frames.

14. The apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein the simplifying unit is further configured to:
set separators between the corresponding function name information and the corresponding module name information in the simplified stack frames.

15. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the simplifying unit is configured to:
determine the similarity between the failures based on common simplified stacks of the failures or the sub-stacks of the failures having a largest number of common simplified stack frames.

16. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the simplifying unit is further configured to obtain simplified stacks and sub-stacks of the simplified stacks for a plurality of failures; and
wherein the apparatus further comprises a mapping table generating unit configured to generate a mapping table between the plurality of failures and the simplified stacks for the plurality of failures and between the plurality of failures and the sub-stacks.

17. The apparatus according to claim 16 , wherein the simplifying unit is further configured to obtain simplified stacks and sub-stacks of the simplified stacks for a new failure; and
wherein the similarity determining unit is further configured to search for the simplified stacks and the sub-stacks of the simplified stacks for the new failure from the mapping table to determine a failure having a same simplified stack or sub-stack as the new failure.

Assignees

• Emc Ip Holding Co Llc

Inventors

• Xiao Huibing
• Gao Jian
• Han Geng
• Dong Jibing
• Gao Hongpo

Classifications

• G06F11/0778 Primary

  Dumping, i.e. gathering error/state information after a fault for later diagnosis · CPC title

• G06F11/3636

  by tracing the execution of the program · CPC title

• G06F11/366

  using diagnostics (G06F11/0703 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06F11/0706

  the processing taking place on a specific hardware platform or in a specific software environment · CPC title

• G06F11/079 Primary

  Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis (in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36) · CPC title