Traversal-based visualization of data structures

Algorithm animation systems and graphical debuggers perform the task of translating program state into visual representations. While algorithm animations typically rely on user augmented source code to produce visualizations, debuggers make use of symbolic information in the target program. As a result, visualizations produced by debuggers often lack important semantic content, making them inferior to algorithm animation systems. The paper presents a method to provide higher level, more informative visualizations in a debugger using a technique called traversal based visualization. The debugger traverses a data structure using a set of user supplied patterns to identify parts of the data structure to be drawn a similar way. A declarative language is used to specify the patterns and the actions to take when the patterns are encountered. Alternatively, the user can construct traversal specifications through a graphical user interface to the declarative language. Furthermore, the debugger supports modification of data. Changes made to the on-screen representation are reflected in the underlying data.