research-article

The design and implementation of a dataflow language for scriptable debugging

Authors:

Guillaume Marceau,

Gregory H. Cooper,

Jonathan P. Spiro,

Shriram Krishnamurthi,

Steven P. ReissAuthors Info & Claims

Automated Software Engineering, Volume 14, Issue 1

Pages 59 - 86

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-006-0003-z

Published: 01 March 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Debugging is a laborious, manual activity that often involves the repetition of common operations. Ideally, users should be able to describe these repetitious operations as little programs. Debuggers should therefore be programmable, or scriptable. The operating environment of these scripts, however, imposes interesting design challenges on the programming language in which these scripts are written.

This paper presents our design of a language for scripting debuggers. The language offers powerful primitives that can precisely and concisely capture many important debugging and comprehension metaphors. The paper also describes a pair of debuggers, one for Java and the other for Scheme, built in accordance with these principles. The paper includes concrete examples of applying this debugger to programs.

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Cited By

Pattipati DNasre RPuligundla S(2022)BOLD: an ontology-based log debugger for C programsAutomated Software Engineering10.1007/s10515-021-00308-829:1Online publication date: 1-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10515-021-00308-8
Bajaj DErwig MFedorin DGay K(2021)Adaptable Traces for Program ExplanationsProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-89051-3_12(202-221)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-89051-3_12
Erwig MKumar PFern A(2020)Explanations for Dynamic ProgrammingPractical Aspects of Declarative Languages10.1007/978-3-030-39197-3_12(179-195)Online publication date: 20-Jan-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-39197-3_12
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

The design and implementation of a dataflow language for scriptable debugging
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Software defect analysis
        Software testing and debugging
  2. Software notations and tools

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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Information

Published In

cover image Automated Software Engineering

Automated Software Engineering Volume 14, Issue 1

Mar 2007

123 pages

ISSN:0928-8910

Issue’s Table of Contents

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006.

Publisher

Kluwer Academic Publishers

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 March 2007

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Cited By

Pattipati DNasre RPuligundla S(2022)BOLD: an ontology-based log debugger for C programsAutomated Software Engineering10.1007/s10515-021-00308-829:1Online publication date: 1-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10515-021-00308-8
Bajaj DErwig MFedorin DGay K(2021)Adaptable Traces for Program ExplanationsProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-89051-3_12(202-221)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-89051-3_12
Erwig MKumar PFern A(2020)Explanations for Dynamic ProgrammingPractical Aspects of Declarative Languages10.1007/978-3-030-39197-3_12(179-195)Online publication date: 20-Jan-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-39197-3_12
Felleisen MFindler RFlatt MKrishnamurthi SBarzilay EMcCarthy JTobin-Hochstadt S(2018)A programmable programming languageCommunications of the ACM10.1145/312732361:3(62-71)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3127323
Jahier E(2016)RDBGProceedings of the 19th International Workshop on Software and Compilers for Embedded Systems10.1145/2906363.2906372(116-125)Online publication date: 23-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2906363.2906372
Salvaneschi GMezini MDillon LVisser WWilliams L(2016)Debugging for reactive programmingProceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/2884781.2884815(796-807)Online publication date: 14-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2884781.2884815
Li XFlatt MEdwards JGabriel RPayne A(2015)Medic: metaprogramming and trace-oriented debuggingProceedings of the Workshop on Future Programming10.1145/2846656.2846658(7-14)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2846656.2846658
Nelson TYu DLi YFonseca RKrishnamurthi SRexford JVahdat A(2015)SimonProceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCOMM Symposium on Software Defined Networking Research10.1145/2774993.2774994(1-7)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2774993.2774994
Chiş ADenker MGîrba TNierstrasz O(2015)Practical domain-specific debuggers using the Moldable Debugger frameworkComputer Languages, Systems and Structures10.1016/j.cl.2015.08.00544:PA(89-113)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.cl.2015.08.005
Demetrescu CFinocchi IRibichini A(2014)Reactive Imperative Programming with Dataflow ConstraintsACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/262320037:1(1-53)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2623200
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