DEGREE PROJECT, IN COMPUTER SCIENCE , SECOND LEVEL STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2015 Visualization of Code Flow YURI STANGE KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY COMPUTER SCIENCE AND COMMUNICATION (CSC) Visualization of Code Flow Visualisering av kodflöde YURI STANGE Email at KTH:
[email protected] Subject Area: Computer Science Supervisor: Stefan Arnborg Examiner: Stefan Arnborg Abstract Visual representation of Control Flow Graphs (CFG) is a feature avail- able in many tools, such as decompilers. These tools often rely on graph drawing frameworks which implement the Sugiyama hierarchical style graph drawing method, a well known method for drawing directed graphs. The main disadvantage of the Sugiyama framework, is the fact that it does not take into account the nature of the graph to be visualized, specically loops are treated as second class citizens. The question this paper at- tempts to answer is; how can we improve the visual representation of loops in the graph? A method based on the Sugiyama framework was developed and implemented in Qt. It was evaluated by informally inter- viewing test subjects, who were allowed to test the implementation and compare it to the normal Sugiyama. The results show that all test sub- jects concluded that loops, as well as the overall representation of the graph was improved, although with reservations. The method presented in this paper has problems which need to be adressed, before it can be seen as an optimal solution for drawing Control Flow Graphs. Sammanfattning Visuell representation av ödesscheman (eng. Control Flow Graph, CFG) är en funktion tillgänglig hos många verktyg, bland annat dekom- pilerare. Dessa verktyg använder sig ofta av grafritande ramverk som im- plementerar Sugiyamas metod för uppritning av hierarkiska grafer, vilken är en känd metod för uppritning av riktade grafer.