Automated Error-Prevention and Error-Detection Tools for Assembly Language

摘要

Automated tools for error prevention and error detection exist for many high-level languages, but this class of tools has previously been nonexistent for assembly-language programs, embedded programs in particular. These tools improve the quality and reliability of programs by helping the software engineer automate the arduous tasks of exposing and correcting common errors and oversights. By wrapping these tools around and into a simulated embedded-processor environment, we can completely control and analyze the execution phase of a software system. Many tools for high-level languages-work by incorporating themselves into the target program. This approach affects the memory layout and timing of the code, and embedded systems typically do not have enough resources to support the tools in addition to the target program. Our assembly-language tools, however, work within the simulation environment. We do not modify the target program at all, and the simulated environment keeps the timing and the memory map unchanged. The new tools that we have developed are the result of years of research and experience by the authors in testing and debugging students' programming assignments in the Microprocessor sequence of courses at Arizona State University (ASU).