紀要論文

A New Mutant Generation Algorithm based on Path Coverage for Mutant Reduction

eng

24321192

https://doi.org/10.15002/00022719

法政大学大学院情報科学研究科

法政大学大学院紀要. 情報科学研究科編

15

1

6

2020-03-24

Version of Record

Mutation testing is a fault-based white-box testing technique that can be applied to evaluate the adequacy of a given test suite, but its application is very time-consuming due to the necessity of generating and executing a great number of mutants. How to reduce the cost still remains a challenge for research. In our research, we present a new mutant generation algorithm based on the basic path coverage to reduce mutants. The algorithm is characterized by implementing a basic path segment identification criterion for determining appropriate program points at which faults are inserted and a mutant generation priority criterion for selecting proper mutant operators to make a fault for insertion. We discuss the algorithm by analyzing how the two criteria are realized based on analyzing the control flow graph (CFG) of the program under test and applying effective mutation operators on the appropriate statements in the relevant path segments. We also present an automated mutation testing tool that supports the proposed approach, and a small experiment to evaluate our tool by comparing it with a traditional mutation testing method on six programs. The result of the experiment suggests that using the method of this paper, the high mutation score can be maintained while reducing the number of mutants.

Article

AA12746425