Computer Science ›› 2016, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (2): 199-203.doi: 10.11896/j.issn.1002-137X.2016.02.043

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Dynamic Mutation Execution Strategy for Mutation-based Fault Localization

GONG Pei, GENG Chu-yao, GUO Jun-xia and ZHAO Rui-lian   

  • Online:2018-12-01 Published:2018-12-01

Abstract: During software debugging process,how to locate faults in programs quickly and accurately is an issue of common concern to developers.Mutation-based fault localization is an approach by estimating the possibilities of statements that incur error to locate faults on the basis of the similarity between the programs under test and corresponding mutants.This approach shows a high precision on fault localization but requires a large execution cost,since it needs to execute the test suite on a lot of mutants.For reducing unnecessary execution cost,this paper presented a dynamic mutation execution strategy,which dynamically adjusts the execution orders of both mutants and test cases according to previous execution information.Empirical studies were conducted on 127 faulty versions from 6 program packages.The results indicate that this strategy can reduce 23% up to 78% mutation execution cost under the case of keeping fault location precision.

Key words: Fault localization,Mutation analysis,Mutation execution strategy

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