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An instruction step is a method of executing a computer program one step at a time to determine how it is functioning. This might be to determine if the correct program flow is being followed in the program during the execution or to see if variables are set to their correct values after a single step has completed.
Execution in computer and software engineering is the process by which a computer or virtual machine interprets and acts on the instructions of a computer program.Each instruction of a program is a description of a particular action which must be carried out, in order for a specific problem to be solved.
In simpler CPUs, the instruction cycle is executed sequentially, each instruction being processed before the next one is started. In most modern CPUs, the instruction cycles are instead executed concurrently, and often in parallel, through an instruction pipeline: the next instruction starts being processed before the previous instruction has finished, which is possible because the cycle is ...
Instead of using a physical stop button to suspend execution - to then begin stepping through the application program, a breakpoint or "Pause" request must usually be set beforehand, usually at a particular statement/instruction in the program (chosen beforehand or alternatively, by default, at the first instruction).
In computer engineering, instruction pipelining is a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. Pipelining attempts to keep every part of the processor busy with some instruction by dividing incoming instructions into a series of sequential steps (the eponymous "pipeline") performed by different processor units with different parts of instructions ...
This also permitted step-by-step program execution in a true program animation manner with optional register and memory alterations simultaneously displayed. Initially this type of animation was at the level of disassembled or decompiled machine code, but later advanced to HLL source level animation.
The kernel program should perform process scheduling, [132] which is also known as a context switch. The kernel creates a process control block when a computer program is selected for execution. However, an executing program gets exclusive access to the central processing unit only for a time slice.
The program counter points to a memory address and is changed based on special instructions which may cause programmatic branches. The program counter is typically set to a hard coded value when the CPU is first powered on, and will hence execute whatever machine code happens to be at this address.