The pep/8 memory tracer: visualizing activation records on the run-time stack

Authors:
J. Stanley Warford;Chris Dimpfl
Affiliations:
Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, USA;Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Year:
2010

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Abstract

This paper presents a virtual machine simulator with a memory trace facility having two unique features. First, the machine is designed to illustrate the translation from C/C++ to assembly language and from thence to machine language. Instead of the more common memory dump labeled by address, the tracer displays a graphic representation of the cell labeled by its symbol. Second, the simulator displays in real time the growth of the run-time stack on function activation, detects and displays the boundaries of the activation record, and displays all the cells on the run-time stack labeled by symbol. The paper includes download information for the open-source application.