Exploiting UML dynamic object modeling for the visualization of C++ programs

  • Authors:

  • Brian A. Malloy;James F. Power

  • Affiliations:

  • Clemson University;National University of Ireland, Maynooth

  • Venue:
  • SoftVis '05 Proceedings of the 2005 ACM symposium on Software visualization
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

In this paper we present an approach to modeling and visualizing the dynamic interactions among objects in a C++ application. We exploit UML diagrams to expressively visualize both the static and dynamic properties of the application. We make use of a class diagram and call graph of the application to select the parts of the application to be modeled, thereby reducing the number of objects and methods under consideration with a concomitant reduction in the cognitive burden on the user of our system. We use aspects to insert probes into the application to enable profiling of the interactions of objects and methods and we visualize these interactions by providing sequence and communication diagrams for the parts of the program under consideration. We complement our static selectors with dynamic selectors that enable the user to further filter objects and methods from the sequence and communication diagrams, further enhancing the cognitive economy of our system. A key feature of our approach is the provision for dynamic interaction with both the profiler and the application. Interaction with the profiler enables filtering of methods and objects. Interaction with the application enables the user to supply input to the application to provide direction and enhance comprehension or debugging.