BUGTRAN(ID:7614/)

Debugging dialect of FORTRAN II 

FORTRAN II extended for debugging
References:
  • Ferguson, H. Earl; and Berner, Elizabeth. "Debugging systems at the source language level" pp430-434 view details
          in [ACM] CACM 6(08) (August 1963) view details
  • Reynolds, J. C. review of Ferguson 1963 (BUGTRAN) view details Abstract: This paper describes a FORTRAN preprocessor called BUGTRAN which augments the FORTRAN language by adding a statement type for debugging purposes. This new statement allows the programmer to specify a variety of traces and dumps with an output format which includes symbolic variable names and statement numbers. The result is an output which may be interpreted directly in terms of the source language, without the use of symbol tables or storage maps. The provisions for tracing are excellent, but the dump facilities are limited, particularly by the restriction that a dump statement in one subprogram cannot output variables in other subprograms.

    It seems unfortunate that this sort of language augmentation must be performed by using a separate preprocessor rather than by altering the main compiler. It is a sad comment on the state of compiler documentation that it is easier to write a preprocessor from scratch (including a complete syntax analyzer) than to modify an existing compiler.


          in ACM Computing Reviews 5(01) January-February 1964 view details