System and method for intelligent trap analysis

Abstract From the Canadian patent

A method and system for intelligent trap analysis for debugging software on a computer system. Instead of dumping only a register context snapshot or all of memory to a file, a trap handler, determines a likely cause of a trapped instruction and selects relevant memory addresses for copying, to a file. The relevant memory addresses and their contents are preserved for later analysis. The trap, handler may step back through the process instruction list searching for relevant memory addresses, referenced by the instructions preceding the trapped instruction. The module may undo the effect, of instructions as it steps back through the instruction list.