SWAN: A Student-Controllable Data Structure Visualization System

Swan is a data structure visualization system. Its main purpose is to allow the user to visualize the data structures and the basic execution process of a C/C++ program. Swan views a data structure as a graph or a collection of graphs. By “graph,” we include both general directed and undirected graphs and special cases such as trees, lists and arrays. As a part of Virginia Tech’s NSF Educational Infrastructure Grant, Swan will be used in two ways: by instructors as a teaching tool for data structures and algorithms, and by students to animate their own programs and to understand how and why their programs do or do not work.