CP10960C/EDUC960C/DBUGDTAP - OS/2 Warp System Debug Tools: Diagnosing Traps in Application Programs

This is the second in the series of IBM workshops about OS/2 Warp's system debug tools. In this three-day workshop, students become familiar with debugging using the dump formatter, an OS/2 Warp system-level diagnosis tool. This workshop contains both lecture and hands-on lab work. The student will spend most of the workshop diagnosing dumps of application traps.

Benefits
This workshop will provide a broad base of understanding how to diagnose application traps in an OS/2 environment. The instruction includes a review of the prerequisites (taught in the workshop Basic Skills for Low-Level Program Debugging), a proven method to solve traps, and how to discover where some particular piece of storage originated. Students who successfully complete the course will be able to state the exact cause of a trap in an application, and will be able to find the full path name of the modules involved.

Objectives
The workshop's objectives are to:
 * Learn why traps occur
 * Learn how to discover the immediate cause, and to successfully find the original cause of a trap, using the dump formatter.

Audience
This workshop is intended for programmers who want to learn how to solve application problems by using the dump formatter; consultants and support people with programming skills who need to be able to correctly identify which program is at fault when a trap involving products from several different sources occurs; and programmers who want to build skills needed to attend the next workshops in this series: Diagnosing Hangs in Application Programs, and Diagnosing Traps in OS/2 Privileged Code.

Topics

 * Review of x86 protection mechanisms, addressing modes, and logical, linear, and physical addresses
 * How to read assembler instructions
 * How a stack operates, and what information it contains that is useful for debugging
 * How to collect the best possible documentation
 * How to create application documentation with C Set
 * How to control the system trace
 * How to collect the best possible dump
 * How to analyze a dump of an application trap
 * Directed lab exercises

Prerequisites
Prerequisites are: C-language programming skills; some high-level debugging skills; knowledge of x86 hardware operation; and knowledge of stack use and content. These skills can be obtained by successfully completing the course Basic Skills for Low-Level Program Debugging.

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