Dynamic slicing object-oriented programs for debugging

Dynamic program slicing is an effective technique for narrowing the errors to the relevant parts of a program when debugging. Given a slicing criterion, the dynamic slice contains only those statements that actually affect the variables in the slicing criterion. We propose a method to dynamically slice object-oriented (OO) programs based on dependence analysis. It uses the object program dependence graph and other static information to reduce the information to be traced during program execution. It deals with OO features such as inheritance, polymorphism and dynamic bindings. Based on this model, we present methods to slice methods, objects and classes. We also modify the slicing criterion to fit for debugging.