Mutants as Patches: Towards a formal approach to Mutation Testing
2019
scientific article
english
- mutation testing
- fault-based testing
- patches
- equivalent mutants
EN Background: Mutation testing is a widely explored technique used toevaluate the quality of software tests, but little attention has been given to its math-ematical foundations.Aim: We provide a formal description of the core concepts in mutation testing, rela-tions between them and conclusions that can be drawn from the presented model.Method: We introduce concepts of mutant space and patch space, and refer to patchmerging procedure from the patch theory. We explicitly present constraints, such aslocation-dependence, that affect mutation operators. We also present a way to useintroduced formalism with traditional operators proposed in other papers.Results: The proposed formalism allows to describe interactions between separatemutations using well-known abstract algebra notation.Conclusion: The presented formalism may substantially decrease the number of testedweak mutants and increase the number of valuable ones, while giving tools to partiallyaddress the problem of equivalent mutants, particularly for higher-order mutationtesting. However, additional empirical evaluation is still needed.
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CC BY-NC-ND (attribution - noncommercial - no derivatives)
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