SAS—an experimental tool for dynamic program structure acquisition and analysis

Abstract This paper describes an experimental microprocessor-based tool, SAS (Software Analysis System), which has been developed to enable dynamic program structure acquistion and analysis to be made on digital computing machines. The system uses a universal hardware extraction technique to obtain branch vectors which are used to analyse and display the structure of the software being monitored. A display, especially designed for small instrument screens, is used to present this structure. Emphasis has been directed towards development of methods with high degrees of machine independence and it is envisaged that such techniques could either be integrated into the new generation of logic analysers or form part of a universal tool for computer programmers. Initial research has been guided towards the application of these techniques to compiled, assembled, or machine coded systems and in this context a number of techniques are described. The motivation for this research has been provided by the present escalating software costs, in particular those in post development which account for approximately 75% of the total software expenditure.