July 14, 2008 — Express Logic released TraceXV3.1, an upgrade to its host-based TraceX embedded development tool introduced last year. TraceX enables embedded developers to visualize and better understand the behavior of their real-time systems.
TraceX 3.1 adds new summary and profiling features that further assist developers in understanding the behavior and performance of their real-time system.Designed to work with Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS, TraceX collects a database of system and application “events” on the target system during run-time. These events include thread context switches, preemptions, suspensions, terminations, and system interrupts, all of which generally escape detection in a standard debugging environment. Events are logged in the database by ThreadX under program control, with time-stamping and active thread identification so they can be displayed later in the proper time sequence.
Event logging may be stopped and restarted by the application program dynamically when an area of interest is encountered, which avoids cluttering the database and using up target memory when the system is performing correctly.
TraceX 3.1 adds run-time analysis features including:
- Execution Profile – that shows the percentage of execution time spent in each application thread, interrupt routine, and system idle time
- Popular Services – that shows which ThreadX services are most often used by the application
- Thread Stack Usage – that shows the amount of stack memory actually used by each thread in the system, enabling better optimization of memory allocated for stack usage as well as detection of stack overflow
- Performance Statistics – actual counts of the number of context switches, interrupts, priority inversions, and other critical events that occurred during system operationIn addition to these analysis features, TraceX 3.1 adds new, fast navigation buttons that simplify user operation of the GUI as well as the ability to support an unlimited number of application threads.
“With TraceX 3.1, we’re able to improve visibility into ThreadX-based systems during development,” commented William E.
Lamie, president of Express Logic.
“TraceX 3.1 delivers information about the behavior of the system in a way that standard debuggers cannot, and this helps developers produce better products in less time than ever before.”
Shipping and Availability
TraceX 3.1 is available from Express Logic immediately for Windows hosts and all target architectures supported by ThreadX.
TraceX 3.1 license price is $1,000 per seat.
About Express Logic
Headquartered in San Diego, CA, Express Logic offers the most advanced run-time solution for deeply embedded applications, including the popular ThreadX RTOS, the high-performance NetX TCP/IP stack, the FileX embedded MS-DOS compatible file system, and the USBX Host/Device USB protocol stack.
All products from Express Logic include full source-code and have no run-time royalties.