Event associations in SNOBOL4 for program debugging
David H. Hanson · Software Practice and Experience · 1978
Abstract An event association facility for the SNOBOL4 programming language is described. This facility permits the execution of a programmer‐defined function to be associated with the occurrence of a specified event. The events with which associations can be made are those applicable to program debugging. Associations can be made with events such as variable referencing, statement execution, program interruption, function call and return, and execution‐time errors. By making event associations available at the source‐language level, debugging aids can be written in SNOBOL4 itself, using the full capabilities of that language. As illustrated by several examples, this approach facilitates the implementation of simple yet powerful debugging aids written in the same language as the programs to be debugged. Event associations provide a mechanism for the unification of the existing SNOBOL4 debugging facilities, and a basis for the addition of other events. The implementation of event associations is also described.