Undo software of Cambridge who make the UndoDB debugging tool for C/C++ Linux and Android have announced a new software tool called Live Recorder. UndoDB has been around for some time now and many have found it a useful tool for program development, allowing the developer to step forwards or backwards through program execution. Stepping through the code you can watch and check variables as they change and stepping backwards to a preceding line, function or the last time a variable changed will return global and local variables to their previous values as you go.

Live Recorder, the company’s newest software tool works like an aircraft’s Black Box recorder. It’s resident in the finished Linux code and when it’s (optionally) enabled by the end user it makes a detailed recording of the program as it runs. It can be set up to run permanently or just to be invoked when a problem is encountered. The recorded information can now be transferred to the software maintenance engineer who will be running a specially configured version of UndoDB where the target system environment will be replicated and the program debugged using all the features of the UndoDB environment.

The system should help cut software maintenance expenses by reducing the need for engineer call outs that are costly in terms of both time and money.