Estimating the number of equivalent mutants

Amani Ayad, Imen Marsit, Jimeng Loh, Mohamed Nazih Omri, Ali Mili

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Equivalent mutants are a constant source of aggravation in mutation testing because they distort mutation-based analysis; but the identification of equivalent mutants is known to be undecidable, in addition to being (in practice) tedious and error-prone. We argue that for most applications it is not necessary to individually identify equivalent mutants; rather it suffices to know/ estimate their number. In this paper, we discuss the specification and design of an automated tool that estimates the number of equivalent mutants generated from a base program by analyzing the source code of the program as well as the mutant generation policy.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2019 IEEE 12th International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops, ICSTW 2019
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages112-121
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781728108889
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2019
Event12th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops, ICSTW 2019 - Xi'an, China
Duration: 22 Apr 201927 Apr 2019

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2019 IEEE 12th International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops, ICSTW 2019

Conference

Conference12th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops, ICSTW 2019
Country/TerritoryChina
CityXi'an
Period22/04/1927/04/19

Keywords

  • Equivalent mutants
  • Mutant generators
  • Mutation testing
  • Redundancy metrics
  • Software tool

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