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Visualising Objects: Abstraction, Encapsulation, Aliasing, and Ownership

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Software Visualization

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2269))

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Abstract

Each object in an object-oriented program can correspond to one abstraction in the program’s design. This correspondence makes visualising object-oriented programs easy: simply render each object in terms of its corresponding abstraction. Unfortunately, the endemic aliasing within object-oriented programs undermines this scheme, as an object’s state can depend on the transitive state of many other objects, which may be unknown to the visualisation system. By analysing programs to determine the extent of aliasing, we can construct visualisations to display aliasing directly, and can provide support for more abstract visualisations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

    James Noble

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  1. James Noble
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. FR Informatik, Saarland University, PO Box 15 11 50, 66041, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Stephan Diehl

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Noble, J. (2002). Visualising Objects: Abstraction, Encapsulation, Aliasing, and Ownership. In: Diehl, S. (eds) Software Visualization. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2269. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45875-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45875-1_5

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43323-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45875-3

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