A generator for language-specific debugging systems

Authors:
R. Bahlke;B. Moritz;G. Snelting
Affiliations:
Fachgebiet Programmiersprachen and Ubersetzer II, Fachbereich Informatik, Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Magdalenenstr. 11c, D-61 Darmstadt, West Germany;Fachgebiet Programmiersprachen and Ubersetzer II, Fachbereich Informatik, Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Magdalenenstr. 11c, D-61 Darmstadt, West Germany;Fachgebiet Programmiersprachen and Ubersetzer II, Fachbereich Informatik, Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Magdalenenstr. 11c, D-61 Darmstadt, West Germany
Venue:
SIGPLAN '87 Papers of the Symposium on Interpreters and interpretive techniques
Year:
1987

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Abstract

We present a system which generates interactive high-level debugging systems from formal language definitions. The language definer has to specify a denotational semantics augmented with a formal description of the language specific debugging facilities. The generated debugger offers the traditional features such as tracing programs, setting breakpoints, displaying variables etc; interaction with the user is always on language level rather than on machine level. The concept has been implemented as part of the PSG-Programming System Generator, and has successfully been used to generate debuggers for Pascal and Modula-2. The core of the implementation consists of an interpreter for a functional language, which has been extended with the language-independent mechanisms needed in order to allow interaction with the user during program execution.