International Business Machines Corporation

Donald Philip Pazel

Steven R Abrams

James L Wright

Daniel V Oppenheim

Pradeep Varma

Amitkumar Manoharrao Paradkar

Ashok Anand

Beth Rush Tibbitts

Liana Liyow Fong

Josyula R Rao

Wim De Pauw

German Sergio Goldszmidt

Jeffrey Scott Boston

Kevan Lee Miller

Michael S Meier

Srirama Mandyam Krishnakumar

Vincent J Cina, Jr

Karen Appleby

Philippe G Charles

Daniel P Oppenheim

Zvi P Weiss

James Robert Russell

Marcel R Karam

Methods and apparatus are provided for non-deterministic incremental program replay using checkpoints and syndrome tracking. Replay of a program proceeds by, for a given execution of the program, recording one or more checkpoints of the program, the one or more checkpoints containing program state information; and a recorded list of values for one or more identified variables executing in one or more threads of the program. Thereafter, during a replay execution of the program, the process continues by commencing execution from a particular one of the recorded checkpoints; restoring the program state information associated with the particular one of the recorded checkpoints; comparing an observed list of values to the recorded list of values for the one or more identified variables executing in each of the one or more threads; and identifying a difference between the observed list of values and the recorded list of values. A perturbation or suspend statement can optionally be introduced into the replay execution of the program.

Method and apparatus for non-deterministic incremental program replay using checkpoints and syndrome tracking

A method, apparatus and computer program product for comparing two computer program codes is disclosed. For each code, a stream of lexemes is generated for the program text of each code. The streams are concatenated in the same order as the program text. The two concatenated streams of lexemes are compared on a language-type by language-type basis to identify lexemes present only in one stream. The comparison derives a set of edit operations including minimal text block moves needed to convert one program code into the other program code.

Computer program code comparison using lexemes

A system (and method, and method for deploying computing infrastructure) for facilitating fixing program development errors found during different phases of program development using different programming tools, such as compilers, linkers, library managers, and debuggers, and can be integrated into a program development environment encompassing all tools. The exemplary aspects of the present invention can detect a qualified set of problems from which to recover with sufficient information, as typically provided by a user or other intelligent or artificial intelligent means, and upon error detection, can initiate a communication with the user (or other support software), to acquire information that could remedy the problem.

System and method for interactive and integrated software development process and phases

The provision of methods and apparatus to determine package identity for an application build. The idea is based on providing a mapping of package with affiliated attributes such as paths used for include or linking, along with reverse mappings. This mapping could be provided through any number of conventional environments such as program development environments or operating system registries: Tools would access this information through a programmatic interface, and use that information to identify packages affiliated with some information. For example, a symbol in a program would be defined in some file. That file would be in a path, which maps to the package identity. Thus, the symbol definition can be conceptually affiliated with a package.

Systems and methods for determining software package identity during a system build

Methods and arrangements for managing error messages from a set of programming tools within a program development environment, such as compilers, linkers, library builders, etc. The error messages are arranged as a directed acyclic graph, with the nodes as error messages, and edges as dependency relationships. In accordance with at least one presently preferred embodiment of the present invention, there are broadly contemplated the following: allowing one or more programming tool to report errors to an error manager component; deducing dependencies amongst error messages, based on error dependency definition provided to the error manager; and delivering messages and dependencies to client components. Although framed within the context of program development tools, this solution could be applied to many other tools outside this domain, under suitable and specified requirements.

Systems and methods for managing error dependencies

A system and method which allows complex tasks to be scheduled and/or coordinated on one or more computer systems by focusing the level of autonomy to each phase of a plan. The phases include computational components and may spawn target phases such that the phases are dependent on the target phases. The phases may begin execution upon completion of the target phases. Each phase may determine further execution, including succeeding phases, in an event-driven manner.

System and method for dynamic self-determining asynchronous event-driven computation

A method (and structure) in a computer network of controlling the admittance of requests to at least one processing component, includes differentiating the type of received requests based on the message content in each request. Each request is admitted only if the differentiated type meets at least one criterion for admission.

Method, system, and program products for distributed content throttling in a computing environment

A method and apparatus for utilizing graphical representations of programming objects to reflect the state of programming objects. State reflection is unique in that it reflects the state of programming objects at the time of programming, rather than during execution, in a visual programming language. The visual programming language comprises a set of graphic aspects which are associated with data element states via a set of graphic aspect references. Each programming object used in the visual programming language comprises a set of data elements. The programming objects may be related via super and subclass objects structures. The method detects when a data element has changed its state and reflects that state change in the visual representation of the programming objects and their respective graphic aspects. A list of graphic aspect references points to a number of graphic aspects which may or may not be applicable to the detected state change. All applicable graphic aspects are applied to the visual representation of the data element whose state has changed. As other data element state changes occur, the applicable graphical aspects are applied accordingly.

Utilizing programming object visual representation for state reflection

A method and apparatus for depicting programming state of programming objects through a combination of associating semantic stat space with programming objects, updating semantic state through affiliated state updates with each programming action, and resolving the alternative programming states with a convergence operator defined on the semantic state space of the programming object type. The state reflection process is further defined in cases where the visual programming object participates in multiple execution paths, as would be the case in, for example, an IF statement wherein the variable is used on both the Left and Right sides. More particularly, this technique resolves these differing states back into a single state representation for the programming object.

System and method for managing programming object visual representations participating in alternative execution paths

The present invention discloses a computer system adapted for composing sound. Sound is composed via a combination of blocks and modifiers, where a block is an abstraction of a collection of data that, when processed by appropriate algorithms and hardware, produces sound. Further, the current invention also comprises one or more modifiers, each of which, when applied to a block, alters the sound produced by that block.

System for producing sound through blocks and modifiers

A method and apparatus for defining direct manipulation relationships amongst graphical elements of hierarchically structured visuals. The method provides a means for specifiying direct manipulation relations in a manner identical to the way they would be utilized in applications. The method captures the direct manipulation specifications as data, which applications may readily utilize to implement those direct manipulation relationships. The direct manipulation relationships are specified at design time, for example, using graphical objects similar to those of the applications, and using graphical gestures identical to the ones to be used in the application. This is a form of direct manipulation by example. Data capturing direct manipulation specifications made in this manner could then be easily used directly in applications.

Means for specifying direct manipulation relationships on hierarchically structured visuals

A method and apparatus for applying a resolution policy for direct manipulation of nested graphical elements. This policy resolves the allowance or disallowance of dragging and dropping of a guest graphical element onto a host graphical element. This is particularly useful when applied to hierarchically structured visual, wherein nested graphical elements may delegate direct manipulation to parent graphical elements. A number of allowed manipulations are defined for the guest and host visual objects. A guest visual object may not have a defined manipulation with a host visual object, but its immediate parent might. The present invention resolves policies for defining allowed manipulations for guest and host visual objects that do not have direct definitions for manipulations and must rely on definitions attributed to their parent.

Resolution policy for direct manipulation on hierarchically structured visuals

Data is graphically displayed using a set of successive outer sectors of a geometrical shape, such as nested concentric circles, in order to provide easy navigation through related data items. Successive outer portions may be partitioned into sectors and are related to the adjacent inner more sector of the graphical representation. The outer sectors may be dynamic or static in nature. When a user selects an outer sector, that outer sector appropriately regenerates to become the new focus (or center) of the graphical representation and successive outer sectors related to the new focus are generated in order to easily navigate through the nodes of the present invention. If the outer sectors were already displayed, those outer sectors become redisplayed to inner more sectors. The non selected nodes of the same level of the selected node and those nodes related to the non selected nodes are no longer graphically represented when the new outer sectors are generated and previous outer sectors are redisplayed to new inner sectors.

Method and apparatus for displaying and navigating a graph

A method and apparatus for combining undo and redo contexts in a distributed access environment is described. A first user gains access to data items residing on a database and modifies the data items. The modifications are incorporated into a user activity log. A subsequent user also accesses and modifies the same data items, which modifications are merged into the activity log. The merged activity log forms one sequential well ordered set of actions, including the modification made by the first user and the subsequent user. The user activity logs may be created for individual data items, individual users or for all modifications made to separate data items. A system for combining undo and redo contexts in a distributed access environment is also described.

Method and apparatus for combining undo and redo contexts in a distributed access environment

A system and method for non-sequential program execution in an incompletely assembled runtime environment. In a program debugging context, a primary advantage is that neither a fully linked executable nor a complete code base is required to execute the program. As well, it is not necessary to begin execution at the traditional program entry point. Six key methods are described. Virtual execution initialization logic involves establishing the runtime environment within the context of the first statement of execution. Statement execution logic concerns execution of a program statement and a technique by which the runtime copes with incomplete information. Reset execution point logic allows the user to randomly reposition the current execution point within a program without violating the runtime environment. Finally, methods for adding and deleting callers into/from the runtime stack are outlined. Extensions for multi-process and thread support are outlined as well as the incorporation of standard and application libraries into the execution model.

Growing community of inventors

Montrose, NY, United States of America

Donald Philip Pazel