AvailObjectFieldHelper

This class assists with the presentation of AvailObjects in the IntelliJ debugger. Since AvailObjects have a uniform structure consisting of a descriptor, an array of AvailObjects, and an array of longs, it is essential to the understanding of a hierarchy of Avail objects that they be presented at the right level of abstraction, including the use of symbolic names for conceptual subobjects.

[The following steps are for Eclipse, but there's a similar mechanism for IntelliJ.]

Eclipse is still kind of fiddly about these presentations, requiring explicit manipulation through dialogs (well, maybe there's some way to hack around with the Eclipse preference files). Here are the minimum steps by which to set up symbolic Avail descriptions:

1. Preferences... Java Debug Logical Structures

   Add:

• Qualified name: avail.descriptor.representation.AvailIntegerValueHelper

• Description: Hide integer value field

• Structure type: Single value

• Code: return new Object[0];

2. Preferences... Java Debug Logical Structures

   Add:

• Qualified name: avail.descriptor.representation.AvailObject

• Description: Present Avail objects

• Structure type: Single value

• Code: return describeForDebugger();

3. Preferences... Java Debug Logical Structures

   Add:

• Qualified name: avail.interpreter.execution.Interpreter

• Description: Present Interpreter as stack frames

• Structure type: Single value

• Code: return describeForDebugger();

4. Preferences... Java Debug Logical Structures

   Add:

• Qualified name: avail.descriptor.representation.AvailObjectFieldHelper

• Description: Present helper's value's fields instead of the helper

• Structure type: Single value

• Code: return value;

5. Preferences... Java Debug Detail Formatters

   Add:

• Qualified type name: avail.descriptor.representation.AvailObjectFieldHelper

• Detail formatter code snippet: return name();

• Enable this detail formatter: (checked)

• (after OK) Show variable details: As the label for all variables

6. In the Debug perspective, go to the Variables view. Select the tool bar icon whose hover help is Show Logical Structure.

Author

Mark van Gulik