Hewlett-Packard Company

Hewlett-Packard Development, L.p.

Bich-Cau Le

Amit J Patel

Anthony Fitzgerald Istvan

The inventive emulator dynamically translates instructions in code written for a first architecture into code for a second architecture. The emulator designates various checkpoints in the original code, and speculatively reorders the placement of the translated code instructions according to optimization procedures. If during the execution of the reordered code, a trap should occur, then the emulator resets the original code to the most recent checkpoint and begins executing the original code sequentially in a line-by-line manner until the section is completed or branched out of. The original code is reset by changing the program counter to the checkpoint, and reversing the effects of each instruction which has been executed subsequent to the checkpoint. Thus, any native instructions which correspond to original instructions which occur sequentially prior to the checkpoint have been executed, and any native instructions which correspond to original instructions which occur sequentially subsequent to the checkpoint have not been executed.

Emulation system that uses dynamic binary translation and permits the safe speculation of trapping operations

Instruction set interpreter which uses a register stack to efficiently map an application register state

A method of interpreting a program and performing time consuming operations at various times in a manner whereby the probability that a user of the program perceives any delay in the execution of the program is minimized. A time consuming operation as used herein is one which may take an interpreter from a fraction of a second to several seconds to perform, depending on the process. The method includes determining when a block will occur during the execution of the program. A block is a period of time that an operating system will halt a running of the program. Next it is determined whether or not to perform the time consuming operation based upon a criteria which depends on a length of time that the program is blocked. If it is blocked for a required time, the time consuming operation is performed, otherwise the interpreter will wait to perform the time consuming operation.

Computer language interpreter which can perform time-consuming operations with minimal impact on interactive programs

An apparatus for translating a multiple user program into a native machine code to run on a native computer hardware having memory and an operating system that is capable of detecting whether the program has an instruction set architecture different from a native instruction set architecture. The memory has a source file including the program to be translated. At least one source code module is defined as including a plurality of blocks of code mapped to the memory by the operating system. The blocks have one or more source instructions, with each block beginning with one of the source instructions and ending with a branch or a target of the branch. A virtual instruction pointer points to one of the source instructions to be executed. One or more source instructions are dynamically translated and executed, and a profile data is produced. A shared translation file is ultimately created for the source code module using the profile data. The shared translation file is periodically offered to at least one of the users.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Bich-Cau Le