Key Instructions: Solving the Code Location Problem for Optimized Code
Caroline Tice, Lytton Avenue · 2000
There are many difficulties to be overcome in the process of designing and implementing a debugger for optimized code. One of the first problems facing the designer of such a debugger is determining how to accurately map between locations in the source program and locations in the corresponding optimized binary. The solution to this problem is critical for many aspects of debugger design, from setting breakpoints, to implementing single-stepping, to reporting error locations. Previous approaches to debugging optimized code have presented many different techniques for solving this location mapping problem (commonly known as the code location problem). These techniques are often very complex and sometimes incomplete. Identifying key instructions allows for a simple yet formal way of mapping between locations in the source program and the optimized target program. In this paper we present the concept of key instructions. We give a formal definition of key instructions and present algorit...