ViMer: a visual debugger for mercury

ABSTRACT

ViMer is a visual debugging environment for Mercury programs which has three main contributions. First, it employs a new execution tree representation, the layered AND-OR tree, which we believe provides a better way of visualizing backtracking in AND-OR-like trees. Second, it uses incremental constraint-solving to efficiently draw and incrementally update the visualization of the execution tree. And finally, it borrows techniques from standard tracers (such as the use of spy points to reduce the amount of tree nodes, and the placement of restrictions on the amount of information stored at each node) that help keep the tool efficient while still providing enough information for debugging.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.2 Language Classifications
          Subjects: Constraint and logic languages

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.4 Processors
          Subjects: Debuggers

General Terms:
Algorithms

Keywords:
execution trees, incremental tree layout, visualization