Patent ID: 7506330

Claim:
A computer implemented method for identifying differences between an execution of a first built computer program and a second built computer program, comprising: obtaining a first call tree data structure corresponding to first trace data of an execution of the first built computer program; obtaining a second call tree data structure corresponding to second trace data of another execution of the second built computer program; walking the second call tree data structure over the first call tree data structure to generate a third call tree data structure, wherein the third call tree data structure includes all nodes of both the first call tree data structure and the second call tree data structure, and wherein each node of the third call tree data structure includes a pass field having one of a first pass field value indicating that a first node was only present in the first call tree data structure, a second pass field value indicating that a second node was only present in the second call tree data structure, and a third pass field value indicating that a third node was present in both the first call tree data structure and the second call tree data structure, wherein walking the second call tree data structure over the first call tree data structure further comprises: for each node that exists in both the first call tree data structure and the second call tree data structure, generating a node in the third call tree data structure with a pass field value computed by subtracting a base value of the node in the second call tree data structure from a base value of a corresponding node in the first call tree data structure; for each node that exists in only the second call tree data structure, creating a node in the third call tree data structure with a pass field value having a negative base value corresponding to a base value of the node that exists in only the second call tree data structure; setting the pass field of the node in the third call tree data structure to the third pass field value; and outputting the third call tree data structure, wherein the third call tree data structure identifies differences between the execution of the first built computer program and the another execution of the second built computer program.