README for IDebug

Welcome to IDebug, an advanced debugging framework for Java!

Source Code

This release of IDebug does include source code. See the source directory for more information.

If you wish to contribute to IDebug, please email kiniry@acm.org and we can discuss our process (e.g. patches, CVS access, contributor maintaining ownership of additions/changes, etc.).

Documentation

This release of IDebug comes with several sets of documentation.

1. The IDebug brief, a short summary of the framework.
2. A design overview for a top-level perspective of the system. This document includes system requirements, background, and a design dictionary.
3. A top-level BON specification of IDebug. See ISE's BON summary for more information on BON.
   Note that in the design overview and BON specification we call the general system being specified the "Monitoring" system. IDebug is an implementation of this specification.
4. Full Javadoc-generated documentation is included in the docs/javadoc directory.
5. A technical report describing IDebug is included in the directory docs/manual. This document isn't a true "user's manual". Such a document will be included in the 1.0 release of IDebug.
6. Miscellaneous other documentation (release notes, FAQ, TODO list, etc.) are included in several text files in the same directory as this file.
7. Use the source! The source code, or more specifically, the full Design by Contract specification that can be found in the source, is your best guide toward the correct use of IDebug. We, of course, use the excellent KindSoftware Coding Standard in IDebug.

Using IDebug

To learn how to use IDebug, one should read the IDebug technical report and peruse the Javadoc documentation. The BON specification is also quite useful in getting a more top-level view of the architecture. Additionally, the source code for the IDebug blackbox test suite has been included in the source/idebug/testsuite directory, which should be very revealing to the interested developer. In that same directory one can find an example extension to the DebugConstants interface called FrenchConstants.

Simply add the IDebug jar file to your CLASSPATH to use IDebug. We suggest using the idebughc class for all development and testing and switching to the interface-identical idebug package for system delivery.

Questions or comments?

Please email kiniry@acm.org.