Weaving a Debugging Aspect into Domain-Specific Language Grammars

SAC ’05 PSC TrackSanta Fe, New Mexico USA

March 17, 2005

Hui Wu, Jeff Gray, Marjan Mernik, and Suman Roychoudhury

http://www.cis.uab.edu/wuh/DDF

This Research is Supported by

Eclipse Innovation Grant by IBM

Challenges with DSL Debugging

Domain Experts program at DSL level

DSL translated into General Purpose Language (GPL)

Domain Experts deal with DSL

Integrated Development Environment

subsel ect mebegin l eft ri ght up downend

Transl ater

subsel ect mepubl i c cl ass Robot{ publ i c stati c voidmain(Stri ng[] args) { Robot robot =new Robot(0,0,0); / /move l eft robot.move_l eft(); / /move down robot.move_down();robot.x = 5; robot.y = 6;

EditorEditor

CompilerCompiler

Visualizer

Visualizer

Debugger

Debugger

Domain Experts deal with GPL

Difficulties with Constructing a DSL Debugger Difficulties with Constructing a DSL Debugger

A debugger is difficult to build because it depends heavily on the underlying operating system’s capabilities and lower-level native code functionality

Manual construction of the debugger for each new DSL can be time-consuming, expensive, and error-prone

Motivation of building a DSL Debugger Domain experts lack knowledge about the underlying GPL Although techniques for constructing a debugger for a GPL

have been developed over the years, debug support for DSLs has not been investigated deeply

The underlying GPL can be messy and human unreadable One line of DSL can be translated into tens of lines of GPL

code

Architecture of DSL Debugging Framework

12

6

1 begin2 left3 down4 up5 right6 end

4

Lexer,Parser

public class Robot{ public static void main(String[] args) { …… //move left x=x-1; time=time+1;

//move down y=y-1; time=time+1; …… } }

3

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class Mapping { ArrayList mapping; public Mapping(){ mapping=new ArrayList(); mapping.add(new Map(1, "Robot.java",2,8)); mapping.add(new Map(2, "Robot.java",10,14)); …… } }

Mapping Component

5

Robot DSL Grammar In ANTLR Notation

Robot DSL

Generated Lexer, and Parser by ANTLR

Robot.java and Mapping.java

Java Command Line Debugger

Robot DSL Debugging Perspective in Eclipse

DebuggerView

DSLEditor

Variables View

DSL grammar is defined using

ANTLR Notation

DSL is the input of the Lexer and

Parser generated by ANTLR

DSL translation

process

Robot DSL corresponding

GPL code generated in

JavaAdditional

Mapping code generated in

Java

Corresponding GPL and Mapping Code

are inputs of Mapping component

jdb communicates with mapping component

Eclipse Debugging perspective

communicates with mapping component

Mapping Technique to Generate Debugger

Source Code Mapping

Source Code Mapping

The source code mapping process uses the generated mapping information to determine which line of the DSL code is mapped to the corresponding segment of GPL code. It indicates the location of the GPL code segment.

The source code mapping process uses the generated mapping information to determine which line of the DSL code is mapped to the corresponding segment of GPL code. It indicates the location of the GPL code segment.

DSL Debugger Framework (DDF)

Debug Methods Mapping

The debug methods mapping process takes the user’s debugging commands from the debugger perspective at the DSL level to determine what type of debugging commands need to be issued to a command line debugger at the GPL level.

Debugging: A Crosscutting Grammar Concern

dsllinenumber=dsllinenumber+1;

gplbeginline=fileio.getLinenumber();gplendline=fileio.getLinenumber();

filemap.print(" mapping.add(new Map("+dsllinenumber+",\"Robot.java\","+gplbeginline+","+gplendline+"));");

…command :( RIGHT {

fileio.print(" //move right");fileio.print(" x=x+1;");

fileio.print(" time=time+1;");

fileio.print(" ");

} |LEFT {

fileio.print(" //move left");fileio.print(" x=x-1;");

fileio.print(" time=time+1;");

fileio.print(" ");

}|…

dsllinenumber=dsllinenumber+1;

gplbeginline=fileio.getLinenumber();gplendline=fileio.getLinenumber();

filemap.print(" mapping.add(new Map("+dsllinenumber+",\"Robot.java\","+gplbeginline+","+gplendline+"));");

Base Grammar

Duplicate Debugging Aspect Code

What if this line changes?Change here

Change here

Change ……

First Approach: Weaving at GPL Level

DSL Grammar

ANTLRParser

Lexer

In Java

Debugging Aspect Specification

In AspectJ

AspectJCompiler

Parser’

Lexer’

With Debugging Aspects Weaved in

DSL Code

DebuggingMapping

Code

GPL

In Java

First Approach: Weaving at GPL Level

…

6 after(int commandname):

7 call(void antlr.Parser.match(int))

8 && args(commandname)

9 { match(commandname); }

10 pointcut count_dsllinenumber():

11 call (void P.command());

12 after(): count_dsllinenumber(){

13 { dsllinenumber=dsllinenumber+1;}

…

…try { // for error handling {

switch ( LA(1)) {case RIGHT:case LEFT:case UP:case DOWN:case INIT:case SET:case PRINT:{

command();commands();break;

}case END:{

System.out.println(" ");break;

}default:{throw new NoViableAltException(LT(1), getFilename());

…

Generated Parser code by ANTLR

Debugging Aspect in AspectJ

First Approach: Weaving at GPL LevelDisadvantages: The lack of mature aspect weavers for many languages

(e.g., Object Pascal, C, or Ada)

Requires the developer of the DSL to have detailed knowledge of the code generator within ANTLR in order to construct the appropriate pointcuts.

In some case, the generated code is unreadable by a human

Second Approach: Weaving into DSL Grammars

DSL Grammar

ANTLR

Debugging Aspect Specification

In Parlanse Function

Parser’

Lexer’

With Debugging Aspects Weaved in

DSL Code

DebuggingMapping

Code

GPL

In Java

DMSDMS

DSL Grammar’ With Debugging

Aspect Weaved In

Second Approach: Weaving into DSL Grammars

Transform actual DSL Grammar Unique contribution of this paper

Language independence.

12 Steps to Weave Debugging Aspects into DSL Grammar Level Using a Program Transformation Engine (DMS)

1. Specify ANTLR grammar specification2. Specify Java semantic actions using DMS regular expression3. Generate ANTLR Parser4. Generate abstract syntax tree with ANTLR_ACTION nodes5. Search ANTLR_ACTION nodes from the generated AST6. Retrieve ANTLR_ACTION nodes and store them in a hash map7. Retrieve associated string expression from each ANTLR_ACTION node8. Modify the regular Java parser by changing the starting production9. Parse the associated string expressions as regular Java statement lists10.Transform the statement lists using the ASTInterface API11.Regenerate the ANTLR_ACTION nodes with debugging aspects weaved in12.Output the complete ANTLR AST (with modified action nodes)

…command :( RIGHT {

dsllinenumber=dsllinenumber+1;fileio.print(" //move right");fileio.print(" x=x+1;");fileio.print(" time=time+1;");gplbeginline=fileio.getLinenumber();gplendline=fileio.getLinenumber();fileio.print(" ");filemap.print(" mapping.add(new Map("+dsllinenumber+",\"Robot.java\","+gplbeginline+","+gplendline+"));");

} |LEFT { dsllinenumber=dsllinenumber+1;

fileio.print(" //move left");fileio.print(" x=x-1;");fileio.print(" time=time+1;");gplbeginline=fileio.getLinenumber();gplendline=fileio.getLinenumber()fileio.print(" ");filemap.print(" mapping.add(new Map("+dsllinenumber+",\"Robot.java\","+gplbeginline+","+gplendline+"));");

}…

DSL Debugger Perspective in Eclipse

Future Work

More complex DSLs and different types of DSLs need to be investigated Imperative, declarative, and hybrid DSLs

Domain-Specific Language Unit Test Framework (DUTF) to complement the DDF

Domain-Specific Language Profiler Framework (DPF) to monitor the runtime environment and performance of the DSL

Related Work

SmartTools is a software factory which generate language development environment based on Java and XML technologies. But the tools like debugger, is not in the generation list.

The Language Implementation System on Attribute Grammars (LISA) tool is a grammar-based system to generate a compiler, interpreter, and other language-based tools

JastAdd is a Java based compiler construction system for AST transformation using JavaCC and tree-building using JJTree.

Conclusion

This paper describes two different approaches to modularize the DSL debugger generation process.

The second approach, which weaves debugging aspects directly into a DSL grammar, offers the most flexibility.

Drawback of current effort Initial learning curve for DMS is huge

AspectANTLR to be developed to remove accidental complexities of using DMS

IDE platform is based solely on IBM Eclipse support for other IDEs will be needed

Experimentation performed only on a simple imperative DSL additional experimental validation needed for other types of DSLs

Questions?

Summary of URLs referenced in talk

DSL Debugger Framework http://www.cis.uab.edu/wuh/DDF

ANTLR http://www.antlr.org

AspectJ http://www.aspectj.org

DMS http://www.semdesigns.com