On the Use of Software Artifacts to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Mutation Analysis for Detecting Errors in Production Software

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Author

Richard A. DeMillo, Aditya P. Mathur

Entry type

techreport

Abstract

We show how mutation testing can be used to detect simple and complex errors that are often found in production software. We present a classification of the errors of TEX reported by Knuth. Using this classification we show that indeed the simple errors that mutation models do form a significant percentage of the errors found in production software. We introduce the notion of an \'error revealing\' mutant and show how such mutants, created by simple alterations of the program under test, can expose complex errors. We use the data provided by Knuth to obtain the types of complex errors used in our examples.

Key alpha

DeMillo

Organization

Software Engineering Research Center

Pages

1-32

School

Purdue University

Publication Date

0000-00-00

1 Introduction................................4 2. Mutation Analysis and Error Detection....................................7 2.1 Error detection.................9 2.2 On the triviality of errors..................................11 2.3 The fault set and errors..................................13 2.4 Types of mutants..... 13 3. Classification of the Errors of TEX........................................15 3.1 Error modeling and simple errors.....................15 3.2 Complex errors.............16 3.3 Unclassifiable entries.................................18 3.4 Ambiguity in error classifiction........................19 3.5 Summary of the errors of TEX..................................19 4. Detecting Errors Using Mutation....................................19 4.1 Detecting simple errors..................................21 4.2 Detecting missing conditions..........................22 4.3 Detecting missing assignments.....................25 4.4 Detecting errors in algorithms..........................27 5. Concluding Remarks

Keywords

error detection, TEX, mutation

Language

English

Location

A hard-copy of this is in the Papers Cabinet

Subject

error detection throught mutation

BibTex-formatted data

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@Techreport{ DeMillo,
	title = "On the Use of Software Artifacts to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Mutation Analysis for Detecting Errors in Production Software",
	author = "Richard A. DeMillo, Aditya P. Mathur",
	organization = "Software Engineering Research Center",
	pages = "1-32",
	school = "Purdue University",
	abstract = "We show how mutation testing can be used to detect simple and complex errors that are often found in production software. We present a classification of the errors of TEX reported by Knuth. Using this classification we show that indeed the simple errors that mutation models do form a significant percentage of the errors found in production software. We introduce the notion of an \'error revealing\' mutant and show how such mutants, created by simple alterations of the program under test, can expose complex errors. We use the data provided by Knuth to obtain the types of complex errors used in our examples.",
	contents = "1 Introduction................................4
2. Mutation Analysis and Error
   Detection....................................7
      2.1 Error detection.................9
      2.2 On the triviality of
         errors..................................11
      2.3 The fault set and
         errors..................................13
      2.4 Types of mutants.....     13
3. Classification of the Errors
   of TEX........................................15
      3.1 Error modeling and
         simple errors.....................15
      3.2 Complex errors.............16
      3.3 Unclassifiable
         entries.................................18
      3.4 Ambiguity in error
         classifiction........................19
      3.5 Summary of the errors
         of TEX..................................19
4. Detecting Errors Using
   Mutation....................................19
      4.1 Detecting simple
         errors..................................21
      4.2 Detecting missing
         conditions..........................22
      4.3 Detecting missing
         assignments.....................25
      4.4 Detecting errors in
         algorithms..........................27
5. Concluding Remarks",
	keywords = "error detection, TEX, mutation",
	language = "English",
	subject = "error detection throught mutation",
}