A New Mutation Analysis Method for Testing Java Exception Handling

Java exception mechanism can effectively free a program from abnormal exits and help developers locate faults with the exception tracing stacks. It is necessary to verify whether the exception handling constructs are arranged appropriately. Some approaches have been developed to evaluate the test sets and improve the quality of them, so that they can raise more number of exceptions in programs. Mutation analysis is a practical method to evaluate the quality of test sets. This paper presents some new mutation operators for Java exception handling constructs. Moreover, equivalent mutants can be identified by our approach. A case study illustrates the effectiveness and characteristic features of these mutation operators.