National Instruments Corporation

Erik Crank

James A Grey

Jon Bellin

A system and method for detecting and/or preventing execution problems caused by user-supplied code modules that are called by steps of a test executive sequence. The test executive sequence may include a plurality of test executive steps. At least a subset of the steps may be configured to call user-supplied code modules. The test executive sequence may be executed on a host computer under control of a test executive engine. For each step that calls a user-supplied code module, the test executive engine may perform certain actions to detect and/or prevent execution problems caused by the user-supplied code module. For example, the test executive engine may be operable to automatically detect stack corruption caused by the user-supplied code module, may be operable to utilize stack safety buffers to avoid stack corruption problems caused by the user-supplied code module, and/or may include features for aiding a user in determining whether the user-supplied code module contains an uninitialized local variable.

Test executive with stack corruption detection

A test executive program which provides greatly improved configurability and modularity, thus simplifying the creation, modification and execution of test sequences. The test executive program includes process models for improved flexibility, modularity and configurability. Process models provide a modular and configurable entity for encapsulating operations and functionality associated with a class of test sequences. The process model thus encapsulates a &ldquo;testing process&rdquo; for a plurality of test sequences. The process model enables the user to write different test sequences without repeating standard testing operations in each sequence. The test executive program also includes step types for improved configurability. A step type is a modular, identifiable unit configured by the user which defines common properties and/or operations associated with a plurality of steps. Instances of the step type incorporate this common functionality and/or properties from the step type, and thus the user is not required to hard code that functionality and/or properties in each instance or step. The test executive program also provides distributed type storage and conflict resolution. When the user loads a file which includes a stored type, the method performs conflict resolution, including determining if the loaded type conflicts with one or more previously loaded/registered types. If the types do conflict, then the test executive or user selects a type, preferably using the version data associated with each type. The test executive system also performs automatic result collection to automatically collect the results of each step. The user can enable or disable result collection for a particular sequence or for the entire test station.

Test executive system and method including process models for improved configurability

A method and apparatus for performing runtime checking during program execution in a compiled environment using the full ANSI-C programming language. The present invention detects a number of errors during runtime that cannot be found by a compiler at the precise moment that a respective C language restriction is violated. The present invention also provides the user with a direct indication of the problem, thus saving debugging time. The runtime checking features of the present invention further detects when a user is using library functions improperly. When C source code is compiled, the present invention allocates special data structures for every pointer, array and structure object in the program. An association is made between each of these objects, and its special data structure in the compiler symbol table. At runtime, these data structures contain status information about their associated objects. The present invention also inserts special machine language instructions for C expressions during compilation that either modify values in the special data structures or call internal runtime checking functions according to the present invention that use the information in the respective data structures to determine whether an expression is illegal and report errors if necessary. The runtime checking features of the present invention include a method for specifying precise restrictions on the arguments that may be passed to library functions. These restrictions are used to determine whether arguments to library functions conform to their respective restrictions and reports any violations to the user at runtime, indicating which argument caused the error and which restriction was violated.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Erik Crank