Program Slice Browser

Abstract

Program slicing is useful for addressing many software engineering problems as it allows focusing attention on just the relevant part of the program. However, this part could still be huge and difficult to comprehend and thus diminish usefulness of program slicing. This is a serious problem in working with legacy codes for scientific computing. To address this problem, the Program Slice Browser (PSB) is designed as an interactive and integrated tool that is particularly valuable for extracting useful information from a complex program slice. PSB incorporates the following novel features: adaptable layout for convenient display of a slice, multi-level slice abstractions, integration with other software visualization components, and capabilities to support interaction and cross-referencing within different views of the software.