Quality metrics for mutation testing with applications to WS‐BPEL compositions

Estero-Botaro, Antonia; Palomo-Lozano, Francisco; Medina‐Bulo, Inmaculada; Domínguez-Jiménez, Juan José; García‐Domínguez, Antonio

doi:10.1002/stvr.1528

Cited by 22 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The minimisation of the test suite removes redundant test cases, leaving both the original and improved suites as accurate representations of what is needed. To perform this minimisation, we employed the algorithm used by EsteroBotaro et al [42], which produces test suites that are exactly minimal rather than approximate. Therefore, in our experiment we minimised the test suites preserving mutation adequacy, obtaining mutation-minimal test suites (abbreviated as MM test suites from now on).…”

Section: Evaluation Of Mutation-driven Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Mutation Testing in a Nuclear Industry Case Study

et al. 2018

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Section: Evaluation Of Mutation-driven Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Mutation Testing in a Nuclear Industry Case Study

et al. 2018

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“…For these experiments, we used the random adequate and minimal test suite generated by the exact algorithm that Estero‐Botaro et al used in their study. Any metric is dependent on the test suite.…”

Section: Assessment Based On Mutant Redundancymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of C++ object‐oriented mutation operators: A selective mutation approach

Delgado‐Pérez

Segura

Medina‐Bulo

2017

Software Testing Verif & Rel

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Summary Mutation testing is an effective but costly testing technique. Several studies have observed that some mutants can be redundant and therefore removed without affecting its effectiveness. Similarly, some mutants may be more effective than others in guiding the tester on the creation of high‐quality test cases. On the basis of these findings, we present an assessment of C++ class mutation operators by classifying them into 2 rankings: the first ranking sorts the operators on the basis of their degree of redundancy and the second regarding the quality of the tests they help to design. Both rankings are used in a selective mutation study analysing the trade‐off between the reduction achieved and the effectiveness when using a subset of mutants. Experimental results consistently show that leveraging the operators at the top of the 2 rankings, which are different, lead to a significant reduction in the number of mutants with a minimum loss of effectiveness.

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“…Moreover, coverage analysis of the test suite could help prevent unnecessary executions. We also plan to evaluate the quality of each of the class-level operators separately, using metrics such as those proposed by Estero-Botaro et al [29]: the results could allow us to obtain a sufficient set of class-level mutation operators for C++. Finally, C++ is quickly evolving and new standards should be studied for creating new class-level operators or adapting existing ones to new semantics or syntax.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of class mutation operators for C++ with the MuCPP mutation system

Delgado‐Pérez

Medina‐Bulo

Palomo-Lozano

et al. 2017

Information and Software Technology

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Context: Mutation testing has been mainly analyzed regarding traditional mutation operators involving structured programming constructs common in mainstream languages, but mutations at the class level have not been assessed to the same extent. This fact is noteworthy in the case of C++, despite being one of the most relevant languages including object-oriented features. Objective: This paper provides a complete evaluation of class operators for the C++ programming language. MuCPP, a new system devoted to the application of mutation testing to this language, was developed to this end. This mutation system implements class mutation operators in a robust way, dealing with the inherent complexity of the language. Method: MuCPP generates the mutants by traversing the abstract syntax tree of each translation unit with the Clang API, and stores mutants as branches in the Git version control system. The tool is able to detect duplicate mutants, avoid system headers, and drive the compilation process. Then, MuCPP is used to conduct experiments with several open-source C++ programs. Results: The improvement rules listed in this paper to reduce unproductive class mutants have a significant impact in the computational cost of the technique. We also calculate the quantity and distribution of mutants generated with class operators, which generate far fewer mutants than their traditional counterparts. Conclusions: We show that the tests accompanying these programs cannot detect faults related to particular object-oriented features of C++. In order to increase the mutation score, we create new test scenarios to kill the surviving class mutants for all the applications. The results confirm that, while traditional mutation operators are still needed, class operators can complement them and help testers further improve the test suite.

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Quality metrics for mutation testing with applications to WS‐BPEL compositions

Cited by 22 publications

References 35 publications

Evaluation of Mutation Testing in a Nuclear Industry Case Study

Evaluation of Mutation Testing in a Nuclear Industry Case Study

Assessment of C++ object‐oriented mutation operators: A selective mutation approach

Assessment of class mutation operators for C++ with the MuCPP mutation system

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