Refining spectrum-based fault localization rankings

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2009

Authors

Abreu, R (Author) FEUP; Mayer, W (Author) Other; Stumptner, M (Author) Other; Van Gemund, AJC (Author) Other

Conference proceedings International

Title: Proceedings of the 2009 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC)

Pages: 409-414

ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC)

Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, March 9-12, 2009

Indexing

ISI Proceedings

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 24 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-008-PD8

DOI: 10.1145/1529282.1529374

Abstract (EN): Spectrum-based fault localization is a statistical technique that aims at helping software developers to find faults quickly by analyzing abstractions of program traces to create a ranking of most probable faulty components (e.g., program statements). Although spectrum-based fault localization has been shown to be effective, its diagnostic accuracy is inherently limited, since the semantics of components are not considered. In particular, components that exhibit identical execution patterns cannot be distinguished. To enhance its diagnostic quality, in this paper, we combine spectrum-based fault localization with a model-based debugging approach based on abstract interpretation within a framework coined Deputo. The model-based approach is used to refine the ranking obtained from the spectrum-based method by filtering out those components that do not explain the observed failures when the program's semantics is considered. We show that this combined approach outperforms the individual approaches and other state-of-the-art automated debugging techniques. Copyright 2009 ACM.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific