High-Level Debuggers: facilities and interfaces · Introduction - Background The Problem Our...

Introduction - BackgroundThe Problem

Our ApproachResults - Future Work

High-Level Debuggers: facilities andinterfaces

Design and Development of a debug-oriented I.D.E.

by Nikos Papoylias

Committee:Assistant Professor Michail G. Lagoudakis (Supervisor)

Assistant Professor Katerina ManiaAssistant Professor Vasilis Samoladas

Departement of Electronic and Computer EngineeringTechnical University of Crete, 2009

Nikos Papoylias High-Level Debuggers



What is this all about ?

From the broad spectrum of computer science we concernourselves with the fields of:

Programming Languages and ToolsHuman-Computer Interaction

More specifically we deal with:

Debugging SystemsIntegrated Development Environments (I.D.Es)

By proposing both theoritically and technologically ways toimprove these systems.




Outline1 Introduction - Background

Motivation: Automation, Debugging and I.D.EsSymbolic-Debuggers, front-ends and systems

2 The ProblemThe current situationHigh-Level debuggingRelated Work

3 Our ApproachRethinking the Debugging Information FlowThe 5 pillars of our HLD systemsImplementation

4 Results - Future WorkLive DemoFuture Work





The Development cycle and debugging

Debuggers are the cardiographs of software

While the term ’debugger’ is attributed to Grace Hoppercreator of Cobol. . .debugging as a process is in fact a general characteristicof all human labor.





Project workflow and I.D.Es

The succession of programming processes, like codingand debugging, determine the ’project’s workflow’Debugging and testing cover roughly 50% of this workflowin timeAn I.D.E. automates and organizes the different parts ofthe workflow






Emacs was one of the first such integration environmentsystem:






that set an example for modern I.D.Es (Anjuta)





Debugging inner-workings

System layers and facilities of debugging:





Debugging information flow

A typical debugging information flow:





Symbolic debugging facilities

A symbolic debugger – like gdb:

Allows you to monitor what is going on ’inside’ yourprogramStart your program, specifing anyting that might affect it’sbehaviourMake your program stop on specified conditionsExamine what has happened when your program stoppedor crashedChange things in your program and continue execution





Symbolic debugging facilities

Line by line navigationstep in, step out, step over. . .

Stack Examinationbacktrace, up, down. . .

Breakpoints, Watchpoints, Catchpointsbreak main.c:37, watch <expr>. . .

Data evaluation/editingprint <expr>. . .





Front-Ends and I.D.Es

Most I.D.Es today, supply a simple front-end to a symbolicdebugger:





Debugging Systems

While few, function as debugging systems providing someadditional facilities, like DDD, Gnat or JBixle do:




The current situationHigh-Level debuggingRelated Work










The current situation

Stagnation. . .Today’s advancement in IDEs although constantly offeringnew features and facilites has left debugging system nearlywhere there were 20 or more years ago.Adoption of academically proposed features ranges fromslow to none.





High-Level debugging

Our Proposition: "High-level debugging systems"that can intergrate legacy technologies, not by justproviding ’graphical access’but by offering more sophisticated methods of monitoring asoftware systemand new ways for a programmer to form his developmentcycle.





Related Work

Published Related WorkDomain-specific debugging languages (Duel,opium,others)Replay, reverse debugging and tracingLanguage-aware tools, Harmonia Project – BerkeleyA lot of work on parallel execution





Related Work

Related Technological AdvancementsGdb 7.0 debugging-scripting, reverse executionJBixle call-graph and data-visualizations (much like ddd)ODB, Cisco debugger and others reverse executionVisual Studio’s visualisersMathematica Arbitary computation and math visualisations




Rethinking the Debugging Information FlowThe 5 pillars of our HLD systemsImplementation










Rethinking the debugging information flow

Rearranging the basics..

Figure: Before Figure: After





The 5 pillars of our HLD System

1. Syntax-aware navigation and debuggingbreadth-first (bottom-up) navigationdepth-first navigation (human mode)referenced variables instead of localsymbol-browsing, completion, refactoring . . .






2. Data VisualisationData as diagrams of abstract graphs and networksa generic A.P.I. for visualising language-oriented datatypesediting and updating, graph expansion, layoutcapabilites. . .






3. General-purpose extention languagetotal control over our parser, visulisation sub-system,symbolic-debuggerhigh-level debugging A.P.I.inter-language evaluation, python to C calls






4. Reverse DebuggingCommunity proposal, high-priority project for FSFbased on experimental work done for gdbour implementation integrates syntax-navigation i.estepping back whole structurescan exhibit memory enhancements through selectiverecording






5. Innovative interfacesNew graphic widgets, dual-panel, graph-widget, console,icon groups . . .Fully scriptable, on-line extentible environmentNew project management and web-documentationapproachesSpeech input for basic debugging controls





Overview

Five interconnected sub-systems constitute the core:the syntax-parserthe symbolic debuggerthe graph-visualisation sub-systemthe extention environment and languagethe project-management module

On top of them, lie:High-level debugging A.P.IUser interface and facilities





Technologies

Over a dozen different technologies and software used.Multi-language approach in C and Python.

syntax parser: flex, bison, libc, glib (n-ary trees), LALR(1)parsersymbolic debugger: gdb/mi, PLYvisualisation, interfaces: gtk+, pygtk, graphviz,dot-language, pocketsphinx, wsj-corporaproject management: gnu-make, pkg-confighld-api and scripting: python-introspection, gdb/mi




Live DemoFuture Work










Live@Lust





Misha R.IDE innovative and complete

This was only the beggining of our trip from an innovative I.D.Eto a complete solution:

Interfaces for legacy facilities:catchpoints, watchpoints, tracing

Other common features of I.D.Es:refactoring, unit-testing, profiling, revisioning, ui-design





H.L.D. system improvements

We want to further integrate the syntax-parser with the rest ofthe system:

for reverse-debugging memory optimizationsfor static code analysis on multi-threaded projectsfor call-graph representations and breakpointsto support incremental parsing





Multi-Language, multi-purpose environments

Probing Further: New ideas that have emergedBidirectional seamless interconnection of more thantwo languagesDesktop and web2.0 unification under one sourceLiteral WYSIWYM programming..and much, much more in Misha R.evolution





Questions ?


High-Level Debuggers: facilities and interfaces · Introduction - Background The Problem Our...

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