DocumentCode
1256824
Title
Simplifying and isolating failure-inducing input
Author
Zeller, Andreas ; Hildebrandt, Ralf
Author_Institution
Lehrstuhl fur Softwaretechnik, Saarlandes Univ., Saarbrucken, Germany
Volume
28
Issue
2
fYear
2002
fDate
2/1/2002 12:00:00 AM
Firstpage
183
Lastpage
200
Abstract
Given some test case, a program fails. Which circumstances of the test case are responsible for the particular failure? The delta debugging algorithm generalizes and simplifies the failing test case to a minimal test case that still produces the failure. It also isolates the difference between a passing and a failing test case. In a case study, the Mozilla Web browser crashed after 95 user actions. Our prototype implementation automatically simplified the input to three relevant user actions. Likewise, it simplified 896 lines of HTML to the single line that caused the failure. The case study required 139 automated test runs or 35 minutes on a 500 MHz PC
Keywords
online front-ends; program debugging; program testing; 500 MHz; HTML; Mozilla web browser; delta debugging algorithm; failure-inducing input; test case; user actions; Automatic testing; Computer Society; Computer bugs; Computer crashes; Databases; Debugging; HTML; Prototypes; Turning; Vehicle crash testing;
fLanguage
English
Journal_Title
Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on
Publisher
ieee
ISSN
0098-5589
Type
jour
DOI
10.1109/32.988498
Filename
988498
Link To Document