Encapsulating and managing diagnostic information

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9582394-B2
Application number	US-82499210-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 28, 2010
Priority date	Jul 30, 2009
Publication date	Feb 28, 2017
Grant date	Feb 28, 2017

Abstract

The disclosed embodiments provide a system that encapsulates and manages diagnostic information. During operation, the system detects an event that generates diagnostic information, and stores this diagnostic information in a format that preserves semantic information associated with the event. The system also determines an output context (e.g., the intended target environment) for the diagnostic information, and then uses the preserved semantic information to output the diagnostic information in a context-sensitive format suited for the output context. Note that outputting customized diagnostic information that is adapted to a specific target environment facilitates improving the quality of diagnostic information presented to a user.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
detecting an event that causes a compiler to generate diagnostic information;
storing the diagnostic information for the event in a manner that preserves semantic information associated with the event;
receiving diagnostic information at a particular development tool, wherein the diagnostic information was generated by the compiler while compiling source code for a program created using the development tool, wherein the diagnostic information has a structured representation that is configured to be plugged into at least one diagnostic formatter from a set of diagnostic formatters, which comprises:
a raw diagnostic formatter that outputs diagnostic information using an internal format of the compiler for diagnostic information;
a tunneling diagnostic formatter that encodes the diagnostic information into a structured XML document;
a rich diagnostic formatter that performs the following modifications to the diagnostic information:
localizing the diagnostic output;
shortening a unique name in the diagnostic information while preserving the name's uniqueness;
lengthening a clashing name in the diagnostic information to make the clashing name unique; and
adding a where clause to the diagnostic information that provides additional type information for variables in the diagnostic information;

selecting the raw diagnostic formatter from the set of diagnostic formatters based on a particular output context for the particular development tool;
using the raw diagnostic formatter to modify at least a particular part of the diagnostic information before presenting the particular part of the diagnostic information to a user through the particular development tool;
selecting the rich diagnostic formatter from the set of diagnostic formatters;
tunneling the diagnostic information through one or more intermediate application layers to a subsequent development tool;
using the rich diagnostic formatter to modify at least a subsequent part of the diagnostic information before presenting the subsequent part of the diagnostic information to the user through the subsequent development tool;
comparing the modified particular part of the diagnostic information or the modified subsequent part of the diagnostic information to a reference diagnostic output generated by a reference compiler; and
presenting the modified particular part of the diagnostic information to the user through the particular development tool, the modified subsequent part of the diagnostic information to the user through the subsequent development tool and results of the comparison to the reference diagnostic output.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein presenting the diagnostic information a particular diagnostic tool and a subsequent diagnostic tool comprises one of:
presenting the diagnostic information through the particular diagnostic tool simultaneously with presenting the diagnostic information through the subsequent diagnostic tool; and
presenting the diagnostic information through the subsequent diagnostic tool after presenting the diagnostic information through the particular diagnostic tool.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein prior to receiving the diagnostic information at the particular development tool, the method further comprises generating the diagnostic information at the compiler by performing the following operations:
while attempting to compile the source code at the compiler, detecting an event that causes the compiler to generate the diagnostic information; and
storing the diagnostic information for the event in the structured representation in a manner that preserves semantic information associated with the event.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the structured representation for the diagnostic information includes the following information:
an identifier that uniquely identifies an underlying diagnostic issue;
an identifier for a file containing source code associated with the underlying diagnostic issue;
position information specifying a location in the source code associated with the underlying diagnostic issue; and
additional information about the underlying diagnostic issue.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein transforming the diagnostic information includes varying one or more of the following based on the output context:
a length of the outputted diagnostic information;
a level of detail for the outputted diagnostic information; and
a level of verbosity for the outputted diagnostic information.

6. The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the diagnostic information passes through one or more intermediate application layers before being presented to the user; and
wherein modifying the diagnostic information comprises encoding the diagnostic information in an output format that facilitates passing the diagnostic information through the one or more intermediate application layers while preserving the semantic information associated with the event.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of diagnostic formatters further includes
a tunneling diagnostic formatter that facilitates tunneling the diagnostic information through one or more intermediate application layers to a software development tool.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein presenting modified diagnostic information to the user additionally includes doing one or more of the following:
adjusting the modified diagnostic information based on a type of event that caused the diagnostic information to be generated; and
adjusting the modified diagnostic information based on a source of the event that caused the diagnostic information to be generated.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the diagnostic formatters causes one or more filepaths within the diagnostic information to be canonicalized.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of diagnostic formatter modes causes the diagnostic output to be localized.

11. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method, the method comprising:
detecting an event that causes a compiler to generate diagnostic information;
storing the diagnostic information for the event in a manner that preserves semantic information associated with the event;
receiving diagnostic information at a particular development tool, wherein the diagnostic information was generated by the compiler while compiling source code for a program created using the development tool, wherein the diagnostic information has a structured representation that is configured to be plugged into at least one diagnostic formatter from a set of diagnostic formatters, which comprises:
a raw diagnostic formatter that outputs diagnostic formatter that outputs diagnostic information using an internal format of the compiler for diagnostic information;
a tunneling diagnostic formatter that encodes the diagnostic information into a structured XML document;
a rich diagnostic formatter that performs the following modifications to the diagnostic information:
localizing the diagnostic output;
shortening a unique name in the diagnostic information while preserving the name's uniqueness;
lengthening a clashing name in the diagnostic information to make the clashing name unique; and
adding a where clause to the diagnostic information that provides additional type information for variables in the diagnostic information;

selecting the raw diagnostic formatter from the set of diagnostic formatters based on a particular output context for the particular development tool;
using the raw diagnostic formatter to modify at least a particular part of the diagnostic information bef

Assignees

• Cimadamore Maurizio
• Gibbons Jonathan J
• Buckley Alexander R
• Oracle Int Corp

Inventors

• Cimadamore Maurizio
• Gibbons Jonathan J
• Buckley Alexander R

Classifications

• G06F11/3604

  Analysis of software for verifying properties of programs (testing of software G06F11/3668) · CPC title

• G06F11/327 Primary

  Alarm or error message display · CPC title

• G06F11/3664

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F11/3698

  Environments for analysis, debugging or testing of software · CPC title