Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Jay Krell

Hoi Huu Vo

Steven J Pratschner

Danny Chen

Allan James Murphy

Galen Clyde Hunt

HoYuen Chau

Joe Chau

High-performance tracing can be achieved for an input program having a plurality of instructions. Techniques such as executable instruction transcription can enable execution of a plurality of instructions at a time via a run buffer. Execution information can be extracted via run buffer execution. Fidelity of execution can be preserved by executing instructions on the target processor. Other features, such as an executable extraction instruction ensemble, branch interpretation, and relative address compensation can be implemented. High quality instruction tracing can thus be achieved without the usual performance penalties.

High-performance processor instruction tracing

Methods for dynamically instrumenting a program while the program is executing are described. In some embodiments, profiling hooks may be selectively inserted into and removed from a program while the program is running. The hooks may gather profiling information, such as the frequency and duration of function calls, for a selected set of functions. The hooks may be inserted into the program without requiring a special build or modifications to the binary by modifying machine-level instructions for the program stored in system memory. The ability to selectively insert instrumentation into the machine-level instructions stored in the system memory allows a set of functions to be selected during execution of the program and hooks for each function of the set of functions to be dynamically inserted or removed during execution of the program to precisely capture profiling information for the set of functions.

Function-level dynamic instrumentation

Growing community of inventors

Renton, WA, United States of America

Jay Krell