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What is a software trace from a mathematical standpoint? Before any software writes its trace data, it assembles it in memory. Therefore, generally, a software trace is a linear ordered sequence of specifically prepared memory fragments (trace statements):

(ts₁, ts₂, …, ts_n) 

where every ts_i is a sequence of bits, bytes or other discrete units (see the definition of a memory dump):

(s₁₁, s₁₂, …, s_1k, s₂₁, s₂₂, …, s_2l, …, …, …, s_n1, s_n2, …, s_nm)

These trace statements can also be minidumps, selected regions of memory space. In the limit, if every ts_i is a full memory snapshot saved at an instant of time (t_i) we have a sequence of memory dumps:

(m_t1, m_t2, …, m_tn) 

Like with memory dump analysis we need symbol files to interpret saved memory fragments unless they were already interpreted during their construction. For example, traces written according ETW specification (Event Tracing for Windows), need TMF files (Trace Message Format) for their interpretation and viewing. Usually these files are generated from PDB files and therefore we have this correspondence:

memory dump file -> software trace file

PDB file -> TMF file 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ TraceAnalysis.org -

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 11:16 pm and is filed under Announcements, Debugging, Mathematics of Debugging, Science of Software Tracing, Software Trace Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.