Patent ID: 8327337

Claim:
A method of debugging a stream application composed from a plurality of processing elements executing on one or more compute nodes, wherein the plurality of processing elements are included in an operator graph of the stream application, the method comprising: receiving an indication of a location for a debugging breakpoint in a first processing element of the plurality of processing elements; evaluating the operator graph to identify a position of the first processing element of the stream application relative to one or more other processing elements of the plurality of processing elements of the stream application; modifying a state of the stream application to allow the first processing element of the stream application to be debugged by performing debugging support changes including at least one of: (i) a fusing operation of the stream application, (ii) an un-fusing operation of the stream application, and (iii) a cloning operation of the stream application; initiating a debugging session for the first processing element of the stream application; and subsequent to the debugging session of the first processing element of the stream application, restoring the state of the stream application by undoing the debugging support changes.