Scenario-Based Software Characterization as a Contingency to Traditional Program Profiling

Program profiling is common way to characterize program behavior based on representative input. Some software, especially in embedded systems, cannot be profiled do to lack of tools or problems introduced by instrumentation of the code. As an alternative to traditionally profiling, a static analysis technique is proposed that allows a designer to characterize the flow of control of software. Operating on a flow graph representation of software, the proposed technique assists an expert designer in the specification of one or more representative scenarios. A scenario defines a specific flow of control that corresponds to a typical behavior of the system. The efficacy of the technique is demonstrated with two experiments: a comparison to traditional profiling and application to real embedded operating system software for which traditional profiling is not possible