Transactional debugger for a transactional memory system and detecting conflicts
Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for providing a debugger for programs running under a transactional memory system. When running a particular program using the debugger, the system detects when a conflict occurs on at least one conflictpoint that was set in the particular program. A graphical user interface is provided that displays information related to the detected conflict. The graphical user interface can display transactional state and/or other details independently of a conflict. A conflictpoint can be assigned to one or more regions of source code in one or more transactions in the particular program. A conflictpoint can also be assigned to a particular variable in the particular program. When running the particular program in a debug mode, execution is stopped if a conflict occurs on any of the conflictpoints.
1. A computer storage medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform steps comprising:
providing a transactional debugger application for debugging programs running under a transactional memory system;
using the transactional debugger application, detecting an occurrence of conflict on a conflictpoint set in at least one program running under the transactional memory system, wherein the conflict is between transactions;
because of the detected conflict, stopping execution of the at least one program running under the transactional memory system; and
displaying information related to the detected conflict occurrence, wherein the information displayed includes multiple concurrent values of a particular variable that are tentatively held by different threads.
2. The computer storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the information displayed includes details about all pending transactions in the program.
3. The computer storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the information displayed includes details about all pending transactions for a particular code segment.
4. The computer storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the information displayed includes one or more visual indicators of the conflict.
5. The computer storage medium of claim 1 , wherein execution of the program is stopped when the conflict is detected.
6. The computer storage medium of claim 1 , wherein a user can assign the conflictpoint to a region of source code in a transaction.
7. The computer storage medium of claim 1 , wherein a user can assign the conflictpoint to a particular variable in the program.
8. The computer storage medium of claim 1 , wherein a user can customize settings for the conflictpoint that specify when the conflictpoint should be detected.
9. A method for debugging transactions using conflictpoints on regions of code comprising the steps of:
using a processing unit, receiving input to assign a conflictpoint to a region of source code in a transaction in a particular program that runs under a transactional memory system;
when running the particular program in a debug mode, using the processing unit, stopping execution if a conflict occurs between transactions that are executing the region of source code; and
displaying information related to the conflict, wherein the information displayed includes multiple concurrent values of a particular variable that are tentatively held by different threads.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the region of code is a single line of code.
11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the region of code includes multiple lines of code.
12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the information includes a transactional state of each transaction involved in the conflict.
13. The method of claim 9 , wherein the transactional information includes a transactional state for all transactions pending at a time the conflict was detected.
14. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the steps recited in claim 9 .
15. A method for debugging transactions using conflictpoints on variables comprising the steps of:
using a processing unit, receiving input to assign a conflictpoint to a particular variable in a particular program that runs under a transactional memory system; and
when running the particular program in a debug mode, using the processing unit, stopping execution if accesses to the particular variable induce a conflict; and
displaying information related to the conflict, wherein the information displayed includes multiple concurrent values of a particular variable that are tentatively held by different threads.
16. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the steps recited in claim 15 .