System and method for data collection and analysis of information relating to mobile applications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11016878-B2
Application number	US-201715465295-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 21, 2017
Priority date	Dec 12, 2011
Publication date	May 25, 2021
Grant date	May 25, 2021

Abstract

A system and method are provided for data collection and analysis of information related to applications. Specifically, the developer of the application may install analytic software, which may be embodied as a software development kit (SDK), on an integrated development environment (“IDE”) associated with the developer, wherein the analytic software may be installed with a wizard-like interface having a series of easy to follow instructions. Once installed, the application, with the analytic software incorporated therein, may be provided and installed on a plurality of end user devices. Thereafter, the analytic software may work in conjunction with analytic processing logic to assist the developer in obtaining pertinent information related to bugs associated with the application that is being executed on an end user device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
re-invoking an application that had previously crashed during a prior invocation;
determining a start address and an end address associated with a first set of pointers from the previous crash of the prior invocation of the application;
determining a start address and an end address associated with a second set of pointers from the re-invocation of the application, wherein the first set of pointers and the second set of pointers point to the same data;
determining a memory address offset between the start and end addresses associated with the second set of pointers associated with the re-invocation of the application and the start and end addresses associated with the first set of pointers stored in crash data generated from the prior invocation of the application by:
generating a debased instruction pointer based on a difference between the start address pointed to by at least one pointer of the first set of pointers from an associated instruction pointer address;
identifying a library address identifier of a library in a current list of libraries associated with the application;
generating a rebased instruction pointer based on the debased instruction pointer and the library address identifier; and
determining the memory address offset by obtaining a difference between the rebased instruction pointer and an address pointed to by a pointer in the second set of pointers from the re-invocation of the application;

processing the crash data generated from the prior invocation of the application using the memory address offset;
determining information associated with the previous crash of the prior invocation of the application based at least on the processed crash data; and
providing the information for output.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein generating the rebased instruction pointer further comprises in response to determining each of the start address and the end address associated with the first set of pointers from the previous crash, identifying a library from a list of libraries associated with each portion of code associated with each of one or more instruction pointers in the application.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein identifying the library from the list of libraries associated with each portion of the code associated with each of the one or more instruction pointers further comprises determining an address identifier associated with each of the libraries associated with each portion of the code.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the operations further comprise:
determining a library start address associated with the address identifier in the current list of libraries.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the operations further comprise:
generating the rebased instruction pointer by adding a debased instruction pointer address to the library start address; and
determining the memory address offset by obtaining a difference between a rebased instruction pointer address and a resource address associated with the re-invocation of the application.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein determining the information associated with the previous crash of the prior invocation of the application comprises determining symbolication of the crash data generated from the prior invocation of the application and enabling the symbolication for future invocations of the application to be provided to a developer of the application.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing software comprising instructions executable by one or more computers which, upon such execution, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
re-invoking an application that had previously crashed during a prior invocation;
determining a start address and an end address associated with a first set of pointers from the previous crash of the prior invocation of the application;
determining a start address and an end address associated with a second set of pointers from the re-invocation of the application, wherein the first set of pointers and the second set of pointers point to the same data;
determining a memory address offset between the start and end addresses associated with the second set of pointers associated with the re-invocation of the application and the start and end addresses associated with the first set of pointers stored in crash data generated from the prior invocation of the application by:
generating a debased instruction pointer based on a difference between the start address pointed to by at least one pointer of the first set of pointers from an associated instruction pointer address;
identifying a library address identifier of a library in a current list of libraries associated with the application;
generating a rebased instruction pointer based on the debased instruction pointer and the library address identifier; and

determining the memory address offset by obtaining a difference between the rebased instruction pointer and an address pointed to by a pointer in the second set of pointers from the re-invocation of the application;
processing the crash data generated from the prior invocation of the application using the memory address offset;
determining information associated with the previous crash of the prior invocation of the application based at least on the processed crash data; and
providing the information for output.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7 , wherein generating the rebased instruction pointer further comprises in response to determining each of the start address and the end address associated with the first set of pointers from the previous crash, identifying a library from a list of libraries associated with each portion of code associated with each of one or more instruction pointers in the application.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein identifying the library from the list of libraries associated with each portion of the code associated with each of the one or more instruction pointers further comprises determining an address identifier associated with each of the libraries associated with each portion of the code.

10. A computer-implemented method comprising:
re-invoking an application that had previously crashed during a prior invocation;
determining a start address and an end address associated with a first set of pointers from the previous crash of the prior invocation of the application;
determining a start address and an end address associated with a second set of pointers from the re-invocation of the application, wherein the first set of pointers and the second set of pointers point to the same data;
determining a memory address offset between the start and end addresses associated with the second set of pointers associated with the re-invocation of the application and the start and end addresses associated with the first set of pointers stored in crash data generated from the prior invocation of the application by:
generating a debased instruction pointer based on a difference between the start address pointed to by at least one pointer of the first set of pointers from an associated instruction pointer address;
identifying a library address identifier of a library in a current list of libraries associated with the application;
generating a rebased instruction pointer based on the debased instruction pointer and the library address identifier; and
determining the memory address offset by obtaining a difference between the rebased instruction pointer and an addres

Assignees

• Google Llc

Inventors

• Chang Wayne
• Seibert Jr Jeffrey H

Classifications

• G06F11/0748 Primary

  in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault (remote testing G06F11/2294) · CPC title

• G06F11/3688 Primary

  for test execution, e.g. scheduling of test suites · CPC title

• G06F11/0742

  in a data processing system embedded in a mobile device, e.g. mobile phones, handheld devices · CPC title

• G06F11/0778

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

• G06F11/0784

  Routing of error reports, e.g. with a specific transmission path or data flow · CPC title