About JIVE

JIVE is an interactive execution environment for Eclipse that provides visualizations of Java program execution at different levels of granularity.

Both beginner and advanced Java programmers will benefit from JIVE's rich visualizations of object structures and method interaction, as well as the ability to step forwards and backwards in execution.

JIVE provides a search engine over the runtime structures and helps pinpoint errors that occur at any point in the execution history without having to manually step through the code.

JIVE helps software maintainers by providing insight into the working of correct Java programs. It supports visualization over intervals, so that a software maintainer can focus on just the parts of the code that are being modified.

JIVE supports large executions through its exclusion filters, visualization over intervals, and dynamic slicing.

Recent extensions to JIVE are aimed at runtime verification of Java programs through the generation of state diagrams from program executions and consistency checking against design-time specifications.

JIVE can be used with the standard JDK or Android SDK.

Interactive Visualizations

JIVE depicts both the runtime state and call history of a program in a visual manner. The runtime state is visualized as an enhanced object diagram, showing object structure as well as method activations in their proper object contexts. The call history is depicted as an extended sequence diagram, with each execution thread shown in a different color, clarifying the object interactions that occur at runtime. The diagrams are scalable and can be filtered to show only information pertinent to the task at hand. JIVE also supports a state diagram view, which is useful for programs that exhibit a repetitive behavior.

Query-based Debugging

Traditional debugging is a procedural process in that a programmer must proceed step-by-step and object-by-object to find the casue of an error. In contrast, JIVE supports a declarative approach to debugging by providing an extensible set of queries over a entire program's execution history, not just over the stack of outstanding calls. Queries are formulated using the source code or the diagrams, and the results are shown in a tabular format and also as diagram annotations. JIVE also supports dynamic slicing in order to achieve reduced visualizations and focus on the root-cause of errors. Traditional debugging is a procedural process in that a programmer must proceed step-by-step and object-by-object to find the casue of an error. In contrast, JIVE supports a declarative approach to debugging by providing an extensible set of queries over a entire program's execution history, not just over the stack of outstanding calls. Queries are formulated using the source code or the diagrams, and the results are shown in a tabular format and also as diagram annotations. JIVE also supports dynamic slicing in order to achieve reduced visualizations and focus on the root-cause of errors.