A framework for visualizing data structures

This paper describes the development of a framework for visualizing data structures. Graphical representations of data structures are well known to be superior to textual representations. But in most interfaces, the data structures cannot be shown graphically. Programmers could easily handle graphical representations known through books and illustrations, so data structures presented graphically to the programmer would facilitate writing code, debugging and testing. The article shows the architecture of a system that can handle data structures graphically. For that purpose, every data structure is bound to a `type´. Typical visualizations can be described for types. Taxonomies of types hold the information necessary for exemplary visualizations. By combination of graphical representations, new visualizations can be built