Automatic Data Structures Visualization in IntelliJ IDEA

Debugging code that involves complex data structures poses significant challenges. It is often difficult to track the flow of data through the data structures while debugging the code, particularly for novice programmers learning algorithms and data structures. A potential approach to simplify this process is to visualize the relevant data structures along with their current states during debugging. However, identifying the specific portions of code that correspond to these data structures presents a unique challenge. To address this, we propose an approach that visualizes the runtime state of key data structures - such as arrays, linked lists, and trees - during debugging by leveraging a large language model (LLM) to facilitate and guide the visualization process. Our current implementation, developed as a plug-in for IntelliJ IDEA, supports the highlighting of array indices and enforces correct element sequencing in linked lists. With this integration of the visualization into the debugging workflow, we aim to improve code comprehension and reduce debugging time and effort. Future work includes expanding support to tree structures and migrating from a remote to an embedded LLM. We plan to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach through user studies with novice programmers, measuring debugging time, bug detection accuracy, and perceived cognitive load.