INCENSE: A system for displaying data structures

Abstract

Many modern computer languages allow the programmer to define and use a variety of data types. Few programming systems, however, allow the programmer similar flexibility when displaying the data structures for debugging, monitoring and documenting programs. Incense is a working prototype system that allows the programmer to interactively investigate data structures in actual programs. The desired displays can be specified by the programmer or a default can be used. The default displays provided by Incense present the standard form for literals of the basic types, the actual names for scalar types, stacked boxes for records and arrays, and curved lines with arrowheads for pointers. In addition to displaying data structures, Incense also allows the user to select, move, erase and redimension the resulting displays. These interactions are provided in a uniform, natural manner using a pointing device (mouse) and keyboard.