README.md

ethereum-graph-debugger

Graphical Solidity debugger. This debugger takes a different approach to traditional debugging. Instead of stepping through the execution of the program, it shows the whole program control flow graph and the actual execution of the transaction highlighted in red. In this way, the developer can see the whole picture and jump where it is necessary in a quick and graphical way.

Usage

Right now, the debugger is very simple:

edebugger-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar <solidity source file> <node URL> <transaction hash>

For example:

java -jar edebugger-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar ~/tests/Program.sol http://127.0.0.1:8545 0x0c971feb820d2bca26c3e7a0a27b5015694d9ec8ea0169935ff7168a63da3f6f

Download

Go to the releases section of this repo

Example debug file

This file is made as a demo to see what this debugger does at this stage. A function (pushIf) was executed in a test contract (the source code of the contract is in the left panel of the debug file). The file can be found here: Example debug file

Existing tools

There are already tools that allow you to debug Ethereum transactions (Solidity):

• Remix
• Truffle

Features

• It compiles the provided source code and draws a control flow graph
• From the provided transaction hash (using debug_traceTransaction) it gets the trace of the transaction
• Combines the control flow graph with the execution trace, highlighting the executed instructions in red
• Instructions opcodes can be clicked in the graph, and the Solidity source code in the left panel involving that instruction is highlighted. Also the EVM state is shown (stack, memory, storage)

Limitations

For now there are many limitations since this is a very early release of the debugger

• It does not debug the code executed to an external contract call
• The control flow graph is drawn from the static bytecode, so there can be nodes without edges, a symbolic execution would be needed. Maybe added in future releases
• Transactions executed in the runtime bytecode are supported (for example, the constructor execution of a contract cannot be debugged right now)
• You must provide a node URL that supports debug_traceTransaction, like Geth or Ganache, therefore, Infura is not supported
• The interface is quite ugly, but usable
• Probably many more

Build the project

mvn clean package creates a fat executable jar at: target/edebugger-<version>.jar

A dependency needs to be in your local maven repository (I want to rewrite that in the future). The project Ethereum disassembler must be installed using mvn clean install.