Skip to main content

Dichotomy Method toward Interactive Testing-Based Fault Localization

  • Conference paper
Book cover Advanced Data Mining and Applications (ADMA 2008)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 5139))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 2503 Accesses

Abstract

A dichotomy method is presented to perform on test-based fault localization. First the test information itself is optimized from three aspects: searching scope localization using slice technique, redundant test case removal, and test suite reduction with nearest series. Secondly, the diagnosis matrix is set up according to the optimized test information and each code is prioritized accordingly. Thirdly, dichotomy method is iteratively applied to an interactive process for seeking the bug: the searching scope is cut in two by the checkpoint cp, which is of the highest priority; If cp is wrong, the bug is found; else we will ignore the codes before/after it according to the result of cp. Finally, we conduct three studies with Siemens suite of 132 program mutants. Our method scores 0.85 on average, which means we only need to check less than 15% of the program before finding out a bug.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Agrawal, H., Horgan, J., London, S., Wong, W.: Fault Localization using Execution Slices and Dataflow Tests. In: Proceedings of ISSRE 1995 (Int. Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering), Toulouse, France, pp. 143–151 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Wong, W.E., Qi, Y.: An execution slice and inter-block data dependency-based approach for fault localization. In: Proceedings of the 11th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC 2004), pp. 366–373 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Jones, J.A., Harrold, M.J., Stasko, J.: Visualization of Test Information to Assist Fault Localization. In: Proc. of the 24th International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 467–477 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Jones, J.A., Harrold, M.J.: Empirical Evaluation of the Tarantula Automatic Fault Localization Technique. In: Proceedings of Automated Software Engineering, USA (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Hao, D., Zhang, L., Zhong, H., Mei, H., Sun, J.: Towards Interactive Fault Localization Using Test Information. In: Proc. of the 13th Asia Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC 2006), pp. 277–284 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Hao, D.: Testing-Based Interactive Fault Localization. In: Proc. of the 28th international conference on Software engineering 2006, pp. 957–960 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Renieris, M., Reiss, S.P.: Fault Localization with Nearest Neighbor Queries. In: Proc. of International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, pp. 30–39 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Hao, D., Zhang, L., Zhong, H., Mei, H., Sun, J.: Eliminating Harmful Redundancy for Test-Based Fault Localization using Test Suite Reduction: An Experimental Study. In: Proc. of the 21th International Conference on Software Maintenance, pp. 683–686 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Hao, D., Pan, Y., Zhang, L., Zhao, W., Mei, H., Sun, J.: A Similarity-Aware Approach to Testing Based Fault Localization. In: Proc. of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, November, pp. 291–294 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Guo, L., Roychoudhury, A., Wang, T.: Accurately choosing execution runs for software fault localization. In: International Conference on Compiler Construction, pp. 80–95 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Jirong, S., Zhishu, L., Jiancheng, N., Feng, Y.: Priority Strategy of Software Fault Localization. In: Proc. of the 6th WSEAS International Conference on Applied Computer Science (ACOS 2007), pp. 500–506 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Agrawal, H., DeMillo, R.A., Spafford, E.H.: Debugging with Dynamic Slicing and Backtracking. Software-Practice & Experience 23(6), 589–616 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Hutchins, M., Foster, H., Goradia, T., Ostrand, T.: Experiments on the effectiveness of dataflow and control flow-based test adequacy criterions. In: Proc. of the 16th International Conf. on software. Eng., pp. 191–200 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Sun, JR., Li, ZS., Ni, JC. (2008). Dichotomy Method toward Interactive Testing-Based Fault Localization. In: Tang, C., Ling, C.X., Zhou, X., Cercone, N.J., Li, X. (eds) Advanced Data Mining and Applications. ADMA 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5139. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88192-6_18

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88192-6_18

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-88191-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-88192-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics