A review of automated debugging systems: knowledge, strategies and techniques

The authors propose a classification of debugging knowledge, and a description of the corresponding knowledge representation in the systems. Then they propose a classification of global debugging strategies used in the systems, and a description of the corresponding techniques. They assess the identified strategies from a real-world program development point of view. The knowledge types identified are: (1) knowledge of the intended program; (2) knowledge of the actual program; (3) understanding of the programming language; (4) general programming expertise; (5) knowledge of the application domain; (6) knowledge of bugs; and (7) knowledge of debugging methods. The strategies identified are: (1) filtering; (2) checking computational equivalence of intended program and actual one; (3) checking the well-formedness of actual program; and (4) recognizing stereotyped errors