Systems and methods for debugging model based message sequences
View Patent ↗A system for simplifying message sequences is disclosed. The system includes a shrink component and a message simplification component. The shrink component is configured to receive a failure inducing message sequence and to provide a shrunk sequence based on the failure inducing message sequence. The shrunk sequence has less or equal number of messages than the failure inducing message sequence. The message simplification component is configured to receive the shrunk sequence and to simplify messages within the shrunk sequence to generate a simplified message sequence including debugging hints.
1. A system for simplifying message sequences comprising:
a shrink component configured to receive a failure inducing message sequence and to generate a shrunk sequence based on the failure inducing message sequence, wherein the shrunk sequence comprises a reduced number of messages than the failure inducing message sequence; and
a message simplification component configured to receive the shrunk sequence and simplify a plurality of messages within the shrunk sequence to generate a simplified message sequence.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the shrink component is configured to identify one or more simplification candidates within the failure inducing message sequence and provide the shrunk sequence based on the one or more simplification candidates.
3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the shrink component is configured to test the one or more simplification candidates using an abstract model to identify one or more successful candidates.
4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the shrink component annotates one or more messages of the failure inducing message sequence with its triggering transition using an abstract model.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the simplified sequence and the failure inducing message sequence lead to the same observable failure.
6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising an abstract model coupled to the shrink component and the message simplification component, wherein the abstract model is a message/event driven model.
7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the abstract model represents a design or behavior of a device.
8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the design or behavior of the device is implemented in software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof.
9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the simplification component is configured to provide debugging hints along with the simplified sequence.
10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the debugging hints indicate a technology area.
11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the message simplification component is configured to analyze message parts of the shrunk sequence to identify possible defects.
12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the message simplification component is configured to identify message parts unlikely to cause a failure.
13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the message simplification component is configured to identify message parts of the shrunk message sequence and to test various values for the identified message parts on an abstract model.
14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the message simplification component utilizes a heuristic algorithm to eliminate non-default message parts from a set of message parts of the shrunk sequence.
15. A method of simplifying a message sequence, the method comprising:
identifying one or more simplification candidates from the message sequence;
testing the one or more simplification candidates to identify at least one successful candidate; and
generating a shrunk message sequence based on the at least one successful candidate.
16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising identifying message parts of the shrunk message sequence and testing the identified message parts to identify likely defective message parts hints.
17. The method of claim 15 , further comprising setting message parts of the shrunk message sequence to default values and identifying those message parts as successful message parts that reproduce an error.
18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising removing the successful message parts from a list of possible message parts to generate a list of remaining message parts.
19. The method of claim 18 , further comprising providing the list of remaining message parts as debugging hints.
20. The method of claim 19 , further comprising debugging a system based on the debugging hints.
21. A method of simplifying a list of message parts, the method comprising:
obtaining a list of message parts from a message sequence;
setting the message parts to first values;
identifying successful candidate message parts set to the first values that reproduce an original message sequence failure;
identifying unsuccessful candidate message parts set to the first values that do not reproduce the original message sequence failure; and
providing the unsuccessful candidate message parts as debugging hints.
22. The method of claim 21 , wherein the first values are default values.
23. The method of claim 21 , wherein the original message sequence failure is a failure induced by the message sequence.
24. The method of claim 21 , wherein identifying successful candidate message parts comprises testing the message parts with the first values on an actual system.