GREEN HILLS SOFTWARE: MOST ADVANCED CODE COVERAGE TOOL.

Green Hills Software has announced G-Cover, the industry's most advanced code coverage analysis tool for embedded software development.

The new tool, part of Green Hills' MULTI and AdaMULTI Integrated Development Environments (IDE), significantly enhances the reliability of embedded software by enabling developers to test 100% of their code. This makes G-Cover ideal for any embedded application that places a premium on maximum reliability and safety, especially those that require DO-178B Level, A certification.

"We originally developed G-Cover to provide DO-178B, Level, A code coverage for our safety-critical customers in the defense and aerospace industries," said John Carbone, vice president of marketing at Green Hills. "But G-Cover is also ideal for any application where reliability and safety are top concerns. G-Cover is the best coverage tool in the business, and the only qualified language-independent tool that ensures 100% coverage of the real code that runs on the target system."

G-Cover is a development tool that automates structural code coverage analysis per DO-178B Table A, Objectives 5, 6 and 7. Tightly integrated with the AdaMULTI and MULTI IDEs, G-Cover utilizes MULTI's debugging facilities (breakpoints, single step, read registers, etc.) to monitor and analyze the execution of production code modules on the target system. The MULTI debugger and G-Cover tools interact with the target system via an Ethernet or serial interface, or via the processor's JTAG or BDM port using a Green Hills Probe or Agilent PowerPC processor probe.

G-Cover provides code coverage analysis at the object code level that is independent of the source language, including assembly. Equally important, G-Cover analyzes all object code branches, including those not traceable to the source code (i.e., code added by the compiler). Unlike other code coverage tools, G-Cover does this without adding instrumentation code to the application, thereby ensuring that the code tested is the same code used in the final system.

G-Cover analyzes the object code to determine the location of all conditional branches, calls, jumps, branch targets, traps and exit instructions. Using this information, G-Cover creates a set of debugging instructions that trap each subroutine entry and exit, entry into each code block and execution of both true and false targets for each conditional branch. As the target application executes, the debugger detects (via breakpoints) entry into code blocks, tags each block, and then tags the next instruction following conditional branches. After the application is executed, G-Cover generates a report showing which tagged blocks and conditional branch targets were covered by the test. This report, along with the compiler assembly listing (which includes accompanying source level statements), can be used to determine what source code was covered.

Green Hills' MULTI and AdaMULTI automate all aspects of software development for most major RISC and CISC microprocessors and DSPs. Tightly integrated with the royalty-free INTEGRITY and ThreadX RTOSes, MULTI and AdaMULTI feature optimizing Ada 95, EC++ and C/C++, compilers, program editor, source-level debugger, graphical program builder and run-time error checker. MULTI and AdaMULTI also include a version control system, instruction set simulators, and performance profiler.

Developed by the non-profit Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA), DO-178B is an internationally recognized standard required for certifying software used in airborne systems and equipment. DO-178B defines five software levels (A through E), with Level A applicable to the most critical aircraft equipment requiring the greatest level of effort to show DO-178 compliance. Objectives 5, 6 and 7 of Table A-7 address statement, decision, and MCDC (Multiple Condition Decision Coverage).