Intelligent computer program debugger, and system and method for implementing the same

1. A method for displaying a user-defined artifact in a debugger view, the user-defined artifact being defined in a software application developed by a computer software application developer, the software application being included in a packaged application, the packaged application configured to include instructions configured to be one of a user-defined instruction and a non-user defined instruction, a breakpoint having been defined at a desired instruction of the packaged application, the method comprising:

initiating debugging of the packaged application;

hitting the breakpoint defined at the desired instruction;

identifying the user-defined artifact in the software application;

obtaining data to populate the debugger view;

filtering-in data associated with the user-defined artifact;

displaying the debugger view showing the filtered-in data;

marking data not associated with the user-defined artifact after the filtering; and

stepping through the user-defined instruction after the marking, while skipping the data not associated with the user defined artifact, wherein each method operation is executed by a processor.

2. A method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the operation of identifying the user-defined artifact in the software application includes,

parsing the software application to detect the user-defined artifact; and

preparing a list of the user-defined artifact.

3. A method as recited in claim 2 , wherein the operation of obtaining data to populate the debugger view includes,

determining a data field to be populated for the debugger view.

4. A method as recited in claim 3 , wherein the operation of filtering-in data associated with the user-defined artifact includes,

using the list of user-defined artifact to determine the data field to be populated for the debugger view; and

building the debugger view by populating the data field to be populated for the debugger view using data associated with the user-defined artifact.

5. A method as recited in claim 3 , wherein the operation of marking data not associated with the user-defined artifact includes,

using a unique identifier to designate a non-user defined artifact.

6. A method as recited in claim 5 , further including,

collapsing the non-user defined artifact.

7. A method as recited in claim 4 , the method further comprising:

displaying the debugger view implementing data obtained to populate the debugger view showing data associated with the user-defined artifact.

8. A method as recited in claim 6 , further including expanding the

non-user-defined artifact.

9. A method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the debugger view can be one of a data view, a stack view, a thread view, a process view, and a source view.

10. A method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the software application is an Enterprise application.

11. A method as recited in claim 10 , wherein the software application is run by a server application running on Java™ 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform.

12. A method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the user-defined artifact is one of a method, a method call sequence, a thread, a loaded class, a class method, a class field, a source code for an application, a declared data variable, and a runtime data variable.

13. A method for debugging a packaged software application including instructions configured to be one of a user-defined instruction contained in a software application developed by a software application developer and a non-user-defined instruction, a breakpoint having been defined at a desired instruction of the packaged software application, the method comprising:

initiating debugging of the packaged software application;

hitting the breakpoint defined at the desired instruction;

identifying a user-defined artifact in the software application, the user-defined artifact being developed by the developer in the software application;

filtering-in an instruction referring to the user-defined artifact;

marking an instruction not referring to the user-defined artifact after the filtering; and

stepping through the instruction referring to the user-defined artifact after the marking, while skipping the data not associated with the user defined artifact; and

displaying data associated with the filtered-in instruction referring to the user-defined artifact, wherein each method operation is executed by a processor.

14. A method as recited in claim 13 , wherein the operation of identifying the user-defined artifact in the software application includes,

parsing the software application to detect the artifact defined by the developer in the software application; and

preparing a list of the user-defined artifact.

15. A method as recited in claim 14 , wherein the operation of filtering-in the instruction referring to the user-defined artifact includes,

locating the instruction referring to the user-defined artifact using the list of the user-defined artifact; and

identifying the instruction not referring to the user-defined artifact.

16. A method as recited in claim 13 , wherein the operation of marking the instruction not referring to the user-defined artifact includes,

identifying the instruction not referring to the user-defined artifact; and

labeling the instruction not referring to the user-defined artifact with a unique identifier.

17. A method as recited in claim 16 , the operation further including,

collapsing the instruction not referring to the user-defined artifact.

18. A method as recited in claim 17 , wherein the operation further includes,

expanding the instruction not referring to the user-defined artifact.

19. A method as recited in claim 13 , wherein the user-defined artifact is one of a method, a method call sequence, a thread, a loaded class, a class method, a class field, a source code for an application, a declared data variable, and a runtime data variable.

20. A computer program embodied on a computer readable medium for displaying a user-defined artifact in a debugger view, the user-defined artifact being defined in a software application developed by a computer software application developer, the software application being included in a packaged application, the packaged application configured to include instructions configured to be one of a user-defined instruction and a non-user defined instruction, a breakpoint having been defined at a desired instruction of the packaged application, the method comprising:

program instructions for initiating debugging of the packaged application;

program instructions for hitting the breakpoint defined at the desired instruction;

program instructions for identifying the user-defined artifact in the software application;

program instructions for obtaining data to populate the debugger view;

program instructions for filtering-in data associated with the user-defined artifact;

program instructions for displaying the debugger view showing the filtered-in data;

program instructions for marking data not associated with the user-defined artifact after the filtering; and

program instructions for stepping through the user-defined instruction after the marking, while skipping the data not associated with the user defined artifact.