HDPV: interactive, faithful, in-vivo runtime state visualization for C/C++ and Java

  • Authors:
  • Jaishankar Sundararaman;Godmar Back

  • Affiliations:
  • Virginia Tech;Virginia Tech

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 4th ACM symposium on Software visualization
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

Data structure visualization can increase program understanding in an educational context and help with visual debugging. Existing data structure visualization tools are limited in interactivity, providing mostly static views; flexibility, by restricting the layout strategies users can apply; scope, by focusing on only a single language; and fidelity, by abstracting away the actual runtime layout and size of a program's data. This paper presents the design and implementation of HDPV, a system for interactive, faithful, in-vivo runtime state visualization for native C/C++ programs and Java programs. We discuss how HDPV can be used for a number of use cases ranging from understanding simple, recursive programs, to understanding the visual effect of programming errors such as buffer overflows.