GENERIC DEVICE DRIVER SIMULATOR AND METHOD

A generic device driver simulator having the knowledge of the device specific behavior moved out of simulator program code is disclosed. The generic device driver simulator includes a generic device driver for supporting application functions without device specific coding included therein, a database including device specific models of device drivers supported by the generic device driver and an interpreter for controlling the generic device driver according to the definitions of functions and data structures in the database. The generic device driver simulator also includes a watcher for defining watchpoints, the watchpoints identifying types of calls from the application. The watcher displays information when a watchpoint is triggered by a call from the application. The interpreter includes an input script for each device function or for multiple device functions that are supported by the generic device driver. The watcher supports the execution of an input script in the interpreter in response to a watchpoint being triggered.