Gong, Dunwei and Zhang, Gongjie and Yao, Xiangjuan and Meng, Fanlin (2017) 'Mutant reduction based on dominance relation for weak mutation testing.' Information and Software Technology, 81. pp. 82-96. ISSN 0950-5849

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Abstract

Context: As a fault-based testing technique, mutation testing is effective at evaluating the quality of existing test suites. However, a large number of mutants result in the high computational cost in mutation testing. As a result, mutant reduction is of great importance to improve the efficiency of mutation testing. Objective: We aim to reduce mutants for weak mutation testing based on the dominance relation between mutant branches. Method: In our method, a new program is formed by inserting mutant branches into the original program. By analyzing the dominance relation between mutant branches in the new program, the non-dominated one is obtained, and the mutant corresponding to the non-dominated mutant branch is the mutant after reduction. Results: The proposed method is applied to test ten benchmark programs and six classes from open-source projects. The experimental results show that our method reduces over 80% mutants on average, which greatly improves the efficiency of mutation testing. Conclusion: We conclude that dominance relation between mutant branches is very important and useful in reducing mutants for mutation testing.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Software testing; Weak mutation testing; Mutant; Reduction; Dominance relation
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Health Faculty of Science and Health > Mathematical Sciences, Department of
SWORD Depositor:	Elements
Depositing User:	Elements
Date Deposited:	05 Nov 2020 13:29
Last Modified:	18 Aug 2022 10:25
URI:	http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/29039

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