Automated Debugging of Syntax Errors

Program debugging is a form of diagnosis that might be referred to as "routine." As such, debugging has similar properties as diagnosis and yet can be solved in a more straight-forward manner than many diagnostic problems. Automating the debugging problem is of interest for several reasons. Debugging is a time-consuming process that tends to haunt many programmers from novices to experts. Yet the debugging problem is of a scope that is implementable unlike many other diagnostic problems which have shown to require massive and unmanageable amounts of knowledge. In this paper, automated debugging of syntax errors in Turbo Pascal programs is considered. The debugging process is compared to diagnosis. Inference types are discussed along with the knowledge of Pascal that is required to perform these inferences. Finally, two prototype automated debugging systems are introduced and demonstrated by an example. Introduction The process of program debugging is one of searching a program for the..