ABSTRACT
The paper reports on a first experimental comparison of software errors generated by real faults and by 1st-order mutations. The experiments were conducted on a program developed by a student from the industrial specification of a critical software from the civil nuclear field. Emphasis was put on the analysis of errors produced upon activation of 12 real faults by focusing on the mechanisms of error creation, masking, and propagation up to failure occurrence, and on the comparison of these errors with those created by 24 mutations. The results involve a total of 3730 errors recorded from program execution traces: 1458 errors were produced by the real faults, and the 2272 others by the mutations. They are in favor of a suitable consistency between errors generated by mutations and by real faults: 85% of the 2272 errors due to the mutations were also produced by the real faults. Moreover, it was observed that although the studied mutations were simple faults, they can create erroneous behaviors as complex as those identified for the real faults. This lends support to the representativeness of errors due to mutations.
- Bis 89.Bishop P.G. and Pullen F.D., "Error Masking: a Source of Failure Dependency in Multi-Version Programs", Proc./st IFIP Working Conference on Dependable Computing for Critical Applications (DCCA-1), Santa-Barbara, USA, pp. 53-73, 1989.Google Scholar
- DeM 78.DeMillo R.A., Lipton R.J. and Sayward F.G., "Hints on Test Data Selection: Help for the Practicing Programmer", Computer, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 34-41, 1978.Google ScholarDigital Library
- DeM 94.DeMillo R.A. and Mathur A.P., "On the Use of Software Artifacts to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Mutation Analysis for Detecting Errors in Production Software", Software Engineering Research Center report, Purdue University, W. Lafayette, USA, 1994.Google Scholar
- Gor 93.Goradia T., "Dynamic Impact Analysis : A Cost-effective Technique to Enforce Errorpropagation", Proc. 1 st International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), Cambridge, USA, pp. 171-181, 1993. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lap 92.Laprie J.C. (Ed.), Dependability: Basic Concepts and Terminology, Springer-Verlag, vol. 5, Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance Systems, Springer-Verlag, 1992. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mur 94.Murrill B.W. and Morell L., "An Experimental Approach to Analyzing Software Semantics Using Error Flow Information", Proc. 2nd International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), Seattle, USA, p. 200, 1994. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Off 89.Offutt A.J., "The Coupling Effect: Fact or Fiction?", Proc. 3rd Symposium on Testing, Analysis and Verification (TAV 3), Key West, USA, pp. 131-140, 1989. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pod 90.Podgurski A. and Clarke L.A., "A Formal Model of Program Dependences and Its Implications for Software Testing, Debugging, and Maintenance", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 16, no. 9, pp. 965- 979, 1990. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ric 88.Richardson D.j. and Thompson M.C., "The RELAY Model of Error Detection and its Application", Proc. 2nd Workshop on Software Testing, Verification and Analysis, Banff, Canada, pp. 223-230, 1988.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Ric 93.Richardson D.J. and Thompson M.C., "An Analysis of Test Data Selection Criteria Using the RELAY Model of Fault Detection", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 533-553, 1993. Google ScholarDigital Library
- The 93.Th6venod-Fosse P. and Waeselynck H., "STATEMATE Applied to Statistical Software Testing", Proc. 1st International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), Cambridge, USA, pp. 99-109, 1993. Google ScholarDigital Library
- The 95.Th6venod-Fosse P. and Crouzet Y., "On the Adequacy of Functional Test Criteria Based on Software Behaviour Models", Proc. 5th IFIP Working Conference on Dependable Computing for Critical Applications (DCCA-5), Urbana- Champaign, USA, pp. 176-187, 1995.Google Scholar
- Tho 93.Thompson M.C., Richardson D.J. and Clarke L.A., "An Information Flow Model of Fault Detection", Proc. 1st international Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), Cambridge, USA, pp. 182-192, 1993. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Voa 92a.Voas J.M. and Miller K.W., "The Revealing Power of a Test Case", Journal of Software Testing, Verification and Reliability, vol. 2, pp. 25-42, 1992.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Voa 92b.Voas J.M., Morell L.M. and Miller K., "Predicting Where Faults Can Hide from Testing", IEEE Software, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 41- 48, 1992. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zei 89.Zeil S.J., "Perturbation Techniques for Detecting Domain Errors", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering , vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 737-746, 1989. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Software error analysis: a real case study involving real faults and mutations
Recommendations
Software error analysis: a real case study involving real faults and mutations
The paper reports on a first experimental comparison of software errors generated by real faults and by 1st-order mutations. The experiments were conducted on a program developed by a student from the industrial specification of a critical software from ...
Error injection aimed at fault removal in fault tolerance mechanisms-criteria for error selection using field data on software faults
ISSRE '96: Proceedings of the The Seventh International Symposium on Software Reliability EngineeringFault injection allows a detailed study of complex interactions between faults and fault handling mechanisms. It can be a useful complement to analytical modeling and formal verification techniques in the testing of fault tolerant systems. However, work ...
Systematic t-Error Correcting/All Unidirectional Error Detecting Codes
In this paper we give methods for the construction of systematic t-random error correcting and all unidirectional error detecting codes. Also we give the encoding/decoding algorithms and discuss their implementation.
Comments