Article

Weaving a debugging aspect into domain-specific language grammars

Authors:

Hui Wu,

Jeff Gray,

Suman Roychoudhury,

Marjan MernikAuthors Info & Claims

SAC '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM symposium on Applied computing

Pages 1370 - 1374

https://doi.org/10.1145/1066677.1066986

Published: 13 March 2005 Publication History

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Abstract

A common trend in programming language specification is to generate various tools (e.g., compiler, editor, profiler, and debugger) from a grammar. In such a generative approach, it is desirable to have the definition of a programming language be modularized according to specific concerns specified in the grammar. However, it is often the case that the corresponding properties of the generated tools are scattered and tangled across the language specification. In this paper, separation of concerns within a programming language specification is demonstrated by considering debugging support within a domain-specific language (DSL). The paper first describes the use of AspectJ to weave the debugging semantics into the code created by a parser generator. The paper outlines several situations when the use of AspectJ is infeasible at separating language specification properties. To accommodate such situations, a second approach is presented that weaves the debugging support directly into a grammar specification using a program transformation engine. A case study for a simple DSL is presented to highlight the benefits of weaving across language specifications defined by grammars.

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Cited By

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Slivnik BKovačević ŽMernik MKosar T(2022)On Comprehension of Genetic Programming Solutions: A Controlled Experiment on Semantic InferenceMathematics10.3390/math1018338610:18(3386)Online publication date: 18-Sep-2022
https://doi.org/10.3390/math10183386
Voelter MKolb BSzabó TRatiu DDeursen A(2019)Lessons learned from developing mbeddrSoftware and Systems Modeling (SoSyM)10.1007/s10270-016-0575-418:1(585-630)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10270-016-0575-4
Li XFlatt MCombemale BMernik MRumpe B(2017)Debugging with domain-specific events via macrosProceedings of the 10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3136014.3136019(91-102)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136014.3136019
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Index Terms

Weaving a debugging aspect into domain-specific language grammars
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Development frameworks and environments
      1. Integrated and visual development environments
    2. Formal language definitions
2. Theory of computation
  1. Formal languages and automata theory
  2. Semantics and reasoning
    1. Program reasoning
      1. Parsing

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

SAC '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM symposium on Applied computing

March 2005

1814 pages

ISBN:1581139640

DOI:10.1145/1066677

Conference Chair:
Hisham M. Haddad
Kennesaw State University
,
Editor:
Lorie M. Liebrock
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM
,
Program Chairs:
Andrea Omicini
Alma Mater Studiorum, Universita di Bologna, Italy
,
Roger L. Wainwright
Univerity of Tulsa, OK

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 13 March 2005

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SIGAPP

SAC05: The 2005 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing

March 13 - 17, 2005

New Mexico, Santa Fe

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,650 of 6,669 submissions, 25%

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Slivnik BKovačević ŽMernik MKosar T(2022)On Comprehension of Genetic Programming Solutions: A Controlled Experiment on Semantic InferenceMathematics10.3390/math1018338610:18(3386)Online publication date: 18-Sep-2022
https://doi.org/10.3390/math10183386
Voelter MKolb BSzabó TRatiu DDeursen A(2019)Lessons learned from developing mbeddrSoftware and Systems Modeling (SoSyM)10.1007/s10270-016-0575-418:1(585-630)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10270-016-0575-4
Li XFlatt MCombemale BMernik MRumpe B(2017)Debugging with domain-specific events via macrosProceedings of the 10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3136014.3136019(91-102)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136014.3136019
Pavletic DVoelter MRaza SKolb BKehrer T(2015)Extensible Debugger Framework for Extensible LanguagesReliable Software Technologies – Ada-Europe 201510.1007/978-3-319-19584-1_3(33-49)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2015
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19584-1_3
Kolomvatsos KValkanas GPatelis PHadjiefthymiades S(2014)Creating, Debugging, and Testing Mobile Applications with the IPAC Application Creation EnvironmentSoftware Design and Development10.4018/978-1-4666-4301-7.ch033(695-718)Online publication date: 2014
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-4301-7.ch033
Kolomvatsos KValkanas GPatelis PHadjiefthymiades S(2013)Creating, Debugging, and Testing Mobile Applications with the IPAC Application Creation EnvironmentFormal and Practical Aspects of Domain-Specific Languages10.4018/978-1-4666-2092-6.ch012(341-364)Online publication date: 2013
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-2092-6.ch012
Drey ZMorales JHermenegildo MCarro M(2013)Reversible Language Extensions and Their Application in DebuggingProceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages - Volume 775210.1007/978-3-642-45284-0_14(206-221)Online publication date: 21-Jan-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-45284-0_14
Voelter MRatiu DSchaetz BKolb BLeavens G(2012)mbeddrProceedings of the 3rd annual conference on Systems, programming, and applications: software for humanity10.1145/2384716.2384767(121-140)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2384716.2384767
Rebernak DMernik MWu HGray J(2009)Domain-specific aspect languages for modularising crosscutting concerns in grammarsIET Software10.1049/iet-sen.2007.01143:3(184)Online publication date: 2009
https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-sen.2007.0114
Vraný JPíše M(2009)Multilanguage Debugger ArchitectureProceedings of the 36th Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science10.1007/978-3-642-11266-9_61(731-742)Online publication date: 8-Dec-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-11266-9_61
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