Debugging into Examples Leveraging Tests for Program Comprehension
Bastian Steinert, Michael Perscheid, Martín Beck, Jens Lincke, Robert Hirschfeld · 2009
Enhancing and maintaining a complex software system re- quires detailed understanding of the underlying source code. Gaining this understanding by reading source code is difficult. Since software systems are inherently dynamic, it is complex and time consuming to imagine, for example, the effects of a method's source code at run-time. The inspec- tion of software systems during execution, as encouraged by debugging tools, contributes to source code comprehension. Leveraged by test cases as entry points, we want to make it easy for developers to experience selected execution paths in their code by debugging into examples. We show how links between test cases and application code can be estab- lished by means of dynamic analysis while executing regular tests.