An API for Runtime Code Patching

  • Authors:
  • Bryan Buck;Jeffrey K. Hollingsworth

  • Affiliations:
  • Computer Science Department, University of Maryland, College Park;Computer Science Department, University of Maryland, College Park

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications
  • Year:
  • 2000

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Abstract

The authors present a postcompiler program manipulation tool called Dyninst, which provides a C++ class library for program instrumentation. Using this library, it is possible to instrument and modify application programs during execution. A unique feature of this library is that it permits machine-independent binary instrumentation programs to be written. The authors describe the interface that a tool sees when using this library. They also discuss three simple tools built using this interface: a utility to count the number of times a function is called, a program to capture the output of an already running program to a file, and an implementation of conditional breakpoints. For the conditional breakpoint example, the authors show that by using their interface compared with gdb, they are able to execute a program with conditional breakpoints up to 900 times faster.