2020
Conference article  Open Access

Tackling the Equivalent Mutant Problem in Real-Time Systems: The 12 Commandments of Model-Based Mutation Testing

Basile D., Ter Beek M. H., Cordy M., Legay A.

mutation  security  mutation-based testing  real-time  real-time systems  Software product lines 

Mutation testing can effectively drive test generation to reveal faults in software systems. However, it faces a typical efficiency issue as it can produce many mutants that are equivalent to the original system, making it impossible to generate test cases. We consider this problem when model-based mutation testing is applied to real-time system product lines, represented as timed automata. We define novel, time-specific mutation operators and formulate the equivalent mutant problem in the frame of timed refinement relations. Further, we study in which cases a mutation yields an equivalent mutant. Our theoretical results provide guidance to system engineers, allowing them to eliminate mutations from which no test case can be produced. Our evaluation, based on a proof-of-concept tool and an industrial case from the automotive domain, confirms the validity of our theory and demonstrates that our approach can eliminate many of the equivalent mutants (88% in our case study).

Source: Proceedings of the 24th International Systems and Software Product Line Conference (SPLC'20), pp. 252–262, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 19-23/10/2020

Publisher: ACM Press, New York, USA


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BibTeX entry
@inproceedings{oai:it.cnr:prodotti:434236,
	title = {Tackling the Equivalent Mutant Problem in Real-Time Systems: The 12 Commandments of Model-Based Mutation Testing},
	author = {Basile D. and Ter Beek M. H. and Cordy M. and Legay A.},
	publisher = {ACM Press, New York, USA},
	doi = {10.1145/3382025.3414966},
	booktitle = {Proceedings of the 24th International Systems and Software Product Line Conference (SPLC'20), pp. 252–262, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 19-23/10/2020},
	year = {2020}
}