An Approach of Improving the Efficiency of Software Fault Localization based on Feedback Ranking Information

Abstract

Fault localization, a critical process of software debugging, can be implemented by ranking program statements according to their suspiciousness of being faulty, which, in turn, is calculated based on the execution behaviors of test cases. The performance of fault localization will deteriorate if the actual faulty statement is ranked low in suspiciousness. Intuitively speaking, the quality of the used test cases affects the suspiciousness ranking and thus the efficacy of fault localization. As such, it is necessary to generate test cases with “better” quality to improve the chance of faulty statements being ranked as highly suspicious. In this paper, we propose a software fault localization approach based on feedback ranking information, namely FLFR, according to an improved genetic algorithm. The starting point of the new method is the execution of a set of test cases, which gives a preliminary suspiciousness ranking of program statements. The improved genetic algorithm is iteratively applied to generate new test cases. The new method is evaluated through a series of experiments on four C programs and two Java programs. The experimental results show that the test cases automatically generated by the method can improve the suspiciousness ranking of the faulty statement, and thus enhance the performance of fault localization.