source-level debugger


source-level debugger

(programming, tool)A debugger that shows the programmer theline or expression in the source code that resulted in aparticular machine code instruction of a running programloaded in memory. This helps the programmer to analyse aprogram's behaviour in the high-level terms like source-levelflow control constructs, procedure calls, namedvariables, etc instead of machine instructions and memorylocations. Source-level debugging also makes it possible tostep through execution a line at a time and set source-levelbreakpoints.

In order to support source-level debugging, the program mustbe compiled with this option enabled so that extra informationis included in the executable code to identify thecorresponding positions in the source code.

A symbolic debugger is one level lower - it displays symbols(procedure and variable names) stored in the executable butnot individual source code lines.

GDB is a widely used example of a source-level debugger.