Maarten Faddegon
Olaf Chitil
Abstract
Existing algorithmic debuggers for Haskell require a transformation of all modules in a program, even libraries that the user does not want to debug and which may use language features not supported by the debugger. This is a pity, because a promising approach to debugging is therefore not applicable to many real-world programs. We use the cost centre stack from the Glasgow Haskell Compiler profiling environment together with runtime value observations as provided by the Haskell Object Observation Debugger (HOOD) to collect enough information for algorithmic debugging. Program annotations are in suspected modules only. With this technique algorithmic debugging is applicable to a much larger set of Haskell programs. This demonstrates that for functional languages in general a simple stack trace extension is useful to support tasks such as profiling and debugging.
Supplemental Material
Available for Download
This archive contains a virtual machine image with executable semantics, prototype debugger and examples of defect programs. The archive also contains a pdf that gives instructions how to set up and use the virtual machine.
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Index Terms
- Algorithmic debugging of real-world haskell programs: deriving dependencies from the cost centre stack
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