Fast model-based fault localisation with test suites

Birch, Geoff, Fischer, Bernd and Poppleton, Michael (2015) Fast model-based fault localisation with test suites. In Tests and Proofs: 9th International Conference, TAP 2015, Held as Part of STAF 2015, L’Aquila, Italy, July 22-24, 2015. Proceedings. vol. 9154, Springer. pp. 38-57 . (doi:10.1007/978-3-319-21215-9_3).

Abstract

Fault localisation, i.e. the identification of program locations that cause errors, takes significant effort and cost. We describe a fast model-based fault localisation algorithm which, given a test suite, uses symbolic execution methods to fully automatically identify a small subset of program locations where genuine program repairs exist. Our algorithm iterates over failing test cases and collects locations where an assignment change can repair exhibited faulty behaviour. Our main contribution is an improved search through the test suite, reducing the effort for the symbolic execution of the models and leading to speed-ups of more than two orders of magnitude over the previously published implementation by Griesmayer et al.

We implemented our algorithm for C programs, using the KLEE symbolic execution engine, and demonstrate its effectiveness on the Siemens TCAS variants. Its performance is in line with recent alternative model-based fault localisation techniques, but narrows the location set further without rejecting any genuine repair locations where faults can be fixed by changing a single assignment

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