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Information to Users INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9412048 Visualizing program variable data for debugging Shomper, Keith Allen, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1993 UMI 300 N. ZeebRd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 V is u a l iz in g P r o g r a m V a r ia b l e D a t a f o r D e b u g g in g DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Keith A. Shomper, B.A., M.S. The Ohio State University 1993 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Wayne E. Carlson Bruce Weide W Adviser Mukesh Singhal Department of Computer and Information Science © Copyright by Keith A. Shomper 1993 To Vickie, Rebekah, Matthew, and Jonathan A cknowledgements My appreciation must first and foremost be to the Lord God who gave me the ability and determination to complete this research. I must also thank Wayne Carlson, my advisor, for keeping me focused on one problem and rescuing me from “biting off more than I could chew.” Your advice on both this research and for professional development is very much appreciated. I thank Bruce Weide for his many useful comments on this work, especially for introducing the idea for providing access to the user-defined “print” procedures. Finally, to Mukesh Singhal, thank you for being a part of my reading committee. Your presence as a reader motivated me to produce a better document. There are others in the Computer and Information Science Department at Ohio State that I wish to thank: Chuck Destefani for being my study partner in the early part of this program, John Boyd for helping me believe that we could finish our programs within the schedules we had set for ourselves, and to the professors in my graphics courses, Rick Parent and Roni Yagel, for making this experience rewarding. Finally, I’d like to thank those who helped me succeed in this program by their steady influence and reassuring support. I thank my parents, Richard and Lillian Huber, for teaching me how to be disciplined in my work. I also wish to thank my wife’s parents, Giovanni and Frances Dastoli, for opening their home to me so I could relax from schoolwork when things got hectic. Thank you Pastor and Mrs. Grandy and the people at Heritage Baptist Church for your prayers and support. Finally, most of all, I am indebted to my wife. Sweetheart, your love and unfailing belief in me kept me from quitting when it would have be easy to do so. To Rebekah, Matthew, and Jonathan, your playful ability to distract me from my schoolwork and to keep me from being swallowed up in it helped me to maintain a healthy focus on the importance of balancing my profession with the greater responsibility of raising you. iv V it a December 4, 1961 ................................................Born - Harrisburg, Pa. 1983 .........................................................................B.A. Mathematics, University of Northern Colorado Greeley, Co. 1984 .........................................................................M.S. Computer Science Air Force Institute of Technology Dayton, Oh. 1985-1990 ...............................................................Computer Analyst Offutt Air Force Base Omaha, Ne. Publications K. Shomper Visual Debugging Technical Research Report OSU-ACCAD-5/93-TR5, Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, The Ohio State University, 2036 Neil Ave, Columbus, Oh 43120, May 1993. Fields of Study- Major Field: Computer and Information Science Studies in: Computer Graphics Prof. Wayne Carlson Software Engineering Prof. Bruce Weide Distributed Computing Prof. Mukesh Singhal T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s DEDICATION .................................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... iii VITA ................................................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ ix LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... x CHAPTER PAGE I Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Necessity of Debugging ................................................................................. 2 1.2 Developments in D ebugging ....................................................................... 3 1.2.1 History of Debugging ................................................................... 3 1.2.2 Debugging Theory .......................................................................... 5 1.2.3 Debugging Practice .......................................................................... 8 1.2.4 Debugger Technology ................................................................... 10 1.3 Debugging Graphical P ro g ra m s ................................................................ 12 1.4 The T h e s i s ..................................................................................................... 14 1.5 Outline of the Dissertation .......................................................................... 15 II Related W ork ............................................................................................................. 18 2.1 Visual Methods in Programming ............................................................ 20 2.1.1 Taxonomies of Visual M e th o d s .................................................. 21 2.1.2 Visual Programming ...................................................................... 24 2.1.3 Program Visualization ................................................................... 27 2.1.4 Visual Debugging ............................................................................. 30 2.2 Visually-Oriented Debugging Tools .......................................................... 31 2.2.1 EXDAMS (1 9 6 9 ) ............................................................................... 32 2.2.2 Incense (1980) .................................................................................. 34 2.2.3 GDBX (1985) ...................................................................................... 37 2.2.4 VIPS (1987) ..................................................................................... 38 2.2.5 PROVIDE (1988) 39 2.2.6 VIPS II (1991) .................................................................................. 41 2.2.7 Commercial Debuggers ..................................................................... 43 2.3 Summary of Previous W ork ...................................................................... 44 2.3.1 Best Characteristics........................................................................ 44 2.3.2 Limitations and Restrictions.......................................................... 45 2.4 Desirable Characteristics for a Visual Debugger ................................... 46 III The Data Visualizer .............................................................................................. 48 3.1 Designing the Data Visualizer ................................................................... 48 3.2 Data Selection and D isplay ...................................................................... 49 3.2.1 D ata S e le c tio n .................................................................................. 50 3.2.2 Data Display..................................................................................... 51 3.3 Debugging With the Data Visualizer ..................................................... 52 3.4 Architecture and Environment .................................................................... 59 IV Data Selection ........................................................................................................ 64 4.1 Reducing Information ...............................................................................
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