Many software language tools use declarative domain-specific languages (DDSLs) to implement parts of their functionality, such as context-free grammars for parsing or inference rules for type analysis. For interoperability and ease of use, DDSLs often rely on embedded general-purpose language (GPL) code fragments, as in the semantic actions of parser specifications, but require that these GPL fragments fulfill certain semantic properties, such as the absence of observable side effects. Fulfilling these properties is usually up to the developer, and accidental violations can lead to subtle and hard-to-trace bugs.

We present property probes, a mechanism for helping a developer explore partial program analysis results in terms of the source program interactively while the program is edited. A node locator data structure is introduced that maps between source code spans and program representation nodes, and that helps identify probed nodes in a robust way, after modifications to the source code. We have developed a client–server based tool CodeProber supporting property probes, and argue that it is very helpful in debugging and understanding program analyses. We have evaluated our tool on several languages and analyses, including a full Java compiler and a tool for intraprocedural dataflow analysis. Our performance results show that the probe overhead is negligible even when analyzing large projects.

We present property probes, a mechanism for helping a developer interactively explore partial program analysis results in terms of the source program, and as the program is edited. A node locator data structure is introduced that maps between source code spans and program representation nodes, and that helps identify probed nodes in a robust way, after modifications to the source code. We have developed a client-server based tool supporting property probes, and argue that it is very helpful in debugging and understanding program analyses. We have evaluated our tool on several languages and analyses, including a full Java compiler and a tool for intraprocedural dataflow analysis. Our performance results show that the probe overhead is negligible even when analyzing large projects.