Julian Smith: Debugging using an exact recording of a program's execution
Channel: CppNow
Date: 2016-03-14

I'll be demonstrating and talking about Undo's Live Recorder. This is a library which allows Linux C++ applications to create 100% accurate recordings of their own execution in the field. Back at base, developers can load these recordings into the UndoDB reversible debugger, allowing them to use reversible debugging on their own machine to investigate failures at a customer site.

Having recordings of applications available and playable via a reversible debugger, allows new ways of working. For example one can compare two recordings using a binary search of their histories to see where they diverged, or have more than one developer work on an exact copy of the same bug at the same time. One can also use gdb's python extension system to programatically expore the history of the original application's execution. This allows things that were previously not considered possible, e.g. dataflow analysis is transformed if one can work backwards in time.
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