Method and apparatus for portable checkpointing using data structure metrics and conversion functions

摘要

A method and apparatus for portable checkpointing comprising the steps of: pre-compiling an input application source code and basic data type conversion functions; and outputting an associated output application source code and structure metrics and conversion function source code, wherein the output application source code includes support for portable checkpointing. The portability of the checkpoints allows migration between systems with different hardware, software, and operating systems. The present invention additionally provides a method and apparatus for conversion of data representations between a local machine format and a Universal Checkpoint Format (UCF) and a method for pointer handling, which involves transforming as absolute pointer into a machine independent offset and vice versa.