Supporting the specification and analysis of timing constraints

Real-time programmers have to deal with the problem of relating timing constraints associated with source code to sequences of machine instructions. This paper describes an environment to assist users in the specification and analysis of timing constraints. A user is allowed specify timing constraints within the source code of a C program. A user interface for a timing analyzer was developed to depict whether these constraints were violated or met. In addition, the interface allows portions of programs to be quickly selected with the corresponding bounded times, source code lines, and machine instructions automatically displayed. The result is a user-friendly environment that supports the user specification and analysis of timing constraints at a high (source code) level and retains the accuracy of low (machine code) level analysis.