Abstract
Using Interpreter and Visitor design patterns is a widely adopted approach to implement programming language interpreters. The popularity of these patterns stems from their expressive and simple design. However, no general approach to conceive a debugger has been commonly adopted.
This paper presents the debuggable interpreter design pattern, a general approach to extend a language interpreter with debugging facilities such as step-over and step-into. Moreover, it enables multiple debuggers to coexists. It extends the Interpreter and Visitor design patterns with few hooks and a debugging service. SmallJS, an interpreter for Javascript-like language, serves as illustration.
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Vraný, J., Bergel, A. (2008). A Debugger for the Interpreter Design Pattern. In: Filipe, J., Shishkov, B., Helfert, M., Maciaszek, L.A. (eds) Software and Data Technologies. ICSOFT ENASE 2007 2007. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 22. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88655-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88655-6_6
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