A dump is a file created by the system at the time of a failure that contains a collection of system data. The collected data is analyzed by software service personnel to determine the cause of a software problem. There are three types of dumps possible for OS/2 Warp Version 4.
The system generates a FFST dump when the FFSTProbe function requests certain user and process data. The dump collects the application-oriented and program-specific information that you specify. Guide to Instrumenting Your Code covers the FFSTProbe function, the FFST dump function, and code instrumentation for this type of activity. This chapter contains information about formatting and displaying the contents of the FFST dump.
A process dump contains limited information about a single process that was running at the time of the failure. The system dump contains greater detail about all processes that were running when the failure occurred. The process dump can be formatted using the PM Dump Facility dump formatter described in this chapter.
A system dump covers system-wide activities. When a system dump occurs, the system automatically stops and stores the contents of main memory. After the data is stored, the system automatically reboots and any operating data that is not in main memory is lost. In other words, when the operating system software encounters a serious problem, the system triggers a system dump. The dump contains the important failure-related information held in the system main memory. The system records this information in a system dump file. You use the information to debug and solve system problems. This chapter discusses the system dump file later.