INSTEP: A Static Instrumentation Framework for Preserving Extra-functional Properties

Tracing is a well-established method for debugging programs. Current approaches aim only at preserving functional correctness during the instrumentation. Preservation of functional correctness is a necessary feature of all instrumentation tools. However, few existing instrumentation tools preserve extra-functional properties of a program. Specific classes of software are unable to leverage software instrumentation; e.g., timing for real-time systems, memory consumption for embedded software, and tracing bandwidth for on-board software.

We present the first instrumentation framework, INSTEP, that preserves logical correctness and a rich set of extra-functional properties. INSTEP derives instrumentation alternatives based on the developer s instrumentation intent (II), abstracts the program and prunes the search space, and then instruments the program based on constraints and cost models of competing properties. We demonstrate and experiment with a fully automated framework of INSTEP with different IIs and extra-functional properties. We also experiment with a large automotive case study to show the scalability of INSTEP.