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A Specifications-Based Mutation Engine for Testing Programs in C#

Authors:
Andreas S. Andreou
Pantelis M. Yiasemis

Keywords: mutation testing; mutation engine; specifications

Abstract:
This paper presents a simple and efficient engine which produces mutations of source code written in C#. The novelty of this engine is that it produces mutations that do not contradict with the specifications of the program. The latter are described by a set of pre- and post-conditions and invariants. The engine comprises two parts, a static analysis and syntactic verification component and a mutation generation component. Preliminary experiments showed that the proposed engine is more efficient than a simple mutations generator in terms of producing only valid mutations according to the specifications posed, thus saving time and effort during testing activities.

Pages: 70 to 75

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2011

Publication date: October 23, 2011

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4235

ISBN: 978-1-61208-165-6

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Dates: from October 23, 2011 to October 29, 2011