The Elements of Crash Dump Analysis Style

The Elements of Crash Dump Analysis Style

After looking at multitude ofcrash dump analysis reports from different companies andengineersI would like to highlight several rules for good analysis reports:

• Format your debugger output in fixed size font (Courier New or Lucida Console). This is very important for readability
• Bold and highlight (using different colors) important addresses or data
• Keep the same color for the same address or data consistently
• Use red color for bug manifestation points
• If you refer to some dump put a link to it

What is considered bad crash dump analysis style? These are:

• Variable size font (you copy yourdebugger outputto Outlook e-mailas is and it is using the default font)
• Highlight the whole data set (for example, stack trace) in red
• Too muchirrelevant information

As an example ofthe good style I advocate (albeit not perfect) please look at the previouspost Crash Dump Analysis Case Study

These aremyfirst thoughts aboutcrash and memory dump analysis style and I continue toelaborate it and present more examples later.

- Dmitry Vostokov -