Cambridge, UK, 2 December 2014, Reversible debugging tools provider Undo Software (http://www.undo-software.com/) today introduced UndoDB Save-Load, as an option for its high performance UndoDB reversible debugging tool. The new, additional cost, option enables developers to save aprogram’s execution history to a single file, share this resulting Undo Recording with colleagues, or re-load the recording on the same or a different machine at a later date for more detailed analysis. Developers benefit as they can enhance collaboration, increase flexibility by deferring and prioritizing when they address the bugs they capture using UndoDB, and reduce usage of expensive or highly contended machines.
UndoDB enables developers to record, rewind and replay their code to quickly find critical bugs, increase productivity and meet development deadlines. The new option extends UndoDB’s functionality by creating and saving an Undo Recording. This is a single file containing information that allows UndoDB to completely reconstruct everything a program has done, including every memory access and every instruction executed.
Through Undo’s inter-machine replay technology, the Undo Recording can then be loaded on a different machine to that on which it was saved, and shared with other developers, increasing collaboration. Developers can priorities the order in which bugs are fixed and jointly debug a particular failure. For example, bugs that have a long run time or strike intermittently can be captured and then preserved for future analysis, without needing to restart the program or reproduce the error, thereby saving time. As Undo Recordings can be saved, UndoDB Save-Load protects against losing data, avoiding the need to spend time re-running the program to reproduce the bug.
“As an existing user of UndoDB we are already seeing the benefits of reversible debugging when writing code for our Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools and wireless sensor network projects,” said Luciano Lavagno, professor of Electronics Engineering at Politecnico di Torino. “We’re looking forward to trying the new Save-Load option because of its ability to save bugs for later analysis and increase collaboration amongst our team. It would be invaluable when finding hard-to-reproduce bugs, such as heisenbugs, that seem to disappear when you try to study them.”
Additionally, the UndoDB Save-Load option enables organizations to reduce usage of expensive or highly contended systems, such as supercomputer nodes, industrial control systems or prototype/bring-up devices, as debugging recordings from these systems can be saved and then loaded onto any UndoDB Save-Load licensed machine running Linux, even if it is running a different Linux distribution.
“Software development is a collaborative process, and UndoDB Save-Load extends this collaboration to the tracking down of bugs, by allowing developers to work together seamlessly,” said Greg Law, CEO and co-founder, Undo Software. “This collaboration is particularly useful when a developer or QA engineer discovers a bug in a colleague’s or vendor’s code and wants to pass that issue on to the author of that code for analysis – as most development is done in teams this is a very common scenario. UndoDB is already proven to find critical bugs quickly, and the new Save-Load option increases flexibility and makes it even easier to benefit from the power of reversible debugging.”
UndoDB Save-Load is available now as an option for new and existing UndoDB licenses.
About Undo Software
Undo Software is the leading commercial supplier of Linux and Android reversible debugging tools that enable software developers to record, rewind and replay their C/C++ code to respond quickly to customer critical bugs, increase their productivity and meet their development deadlines. Used by over 1,000 developers at customers that include Cadence Design Systems and Mentor Graphics to solve complex, real-world problems, UndoDB is proven to reduce debugging time from weeks to minutes, while seamlessly integrating into existing development environments. Undo Software is a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge, UK, and is a Gartner “Cool Vendor in Application Development” for 2014. For more information, see: http://undo-software.com/or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@undosoft.
