Linked-list visualization for debugging

Recent extensions to the VIPS debugger are described. In the original version of VIPS, visualization of linked structures was limited to very small lists or to selected portions of larger structures. The newer version of VIPS extends the original work by adding multiple levels of browsers, letting users interactively identify sublists of interest. Animation facilities support the visualization of dynamic list operations simultaneously among the various views. A preliminary evaluation shows that VIPS helps users find bugs about 30% faster using about 25% fewer debugging commands than Dbxtool, and it can display even a large linked list within about one second.<>