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Cause reduction: delta debugging, even without bugs
Author(s) -
Groce Alex,
Alipour Mohammad Amin,
Zhang Chaoqiang,
Chen Yang,
Regehr John
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
software testing, verification and reliability
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1099-1689
pISSN - 0960-0833
DOI - 10.1002/stvr.1574
Subject(s) - debugging , computer science , reduction (mathematics) , test suite , javascript , programming language , test case , algorithmic program debugging , root cause , code (set theory) , code coverage , test (biology) , software , embedded system , reliability engineering , engineering , mathematics , machine learning , paleontology , geometry , regression analysis , set (abstract data type) , biology
Summary What is a test case for ? Sometimes, to expose a fault. Tests can also exercise code, use memory or time, or produce desired output. Given a desired effect, a test case can be seen as a cause , and its components divided into essential (required for effect) and accidental. Delta debugging is used for removing accidents from failing test cases, producing smaller test cases that are easier to understand. This paper extends delta debugging by simplifying test cases with respect to arbitrary effects , a generalization called cause reduction . Suites produced by cause reduction provide effective quick tests for real‐world programs. For Mozilla's JavaScript engine, the reduced suite is possibly more effective for finding faults. The effectiveness of reduction‐based suites persists through changes to the software, improving coverage by over 500 branches for versions up to 4 months later. Cause reduction has other applications, including improving seeded symbolic execution, where using reduced tests can often double the number of additional branches explored. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.